February 2018

2018 marks the tenth anniversary of PCC being open. Officially, we will celebrate that in October. But this is Africa, so why don’t we just celebrate all year long?

So many girls now at Masirebane high school in Mt Moorosi

After ten years, we are seeing signs of maturity in PCC. What struck me recently was to see some of the children who came to the Centre as young children in 2008, now enrolled to high school! This January marks a record for PCC, with 15 children going from primary to high school. As children get older and move to high school or vocational school, the number of kids on the property decreases. This presents an interesting change for us. We are finding that our focus can not just be 100% on what is happening at the Centre, but we need to think bigger, and wider, and make sure we are caring for the children who are PCC kids, but living elsewhere. We need to think how we can prepare these children to be God loving, responsible, Basotho adults.

At the end of 2017, the ‘Thuso’ fund was introduced. ‘Thuso’ means ‘help’ in Sesotho, and its just what we have called the eduction fund here at PCC. We are keeping funds aside, and raising funds, specifically to go towards the children’s education. Vocational school, university, and in some cases even high school is not free, yet we feel strongly that our children should be given the chance at whatever education path will suit them best. We had some great contributions to the Thuso fund so far and are grateful to have money set aside to provide opportunities for the older children.

From November through to the end of January, we ran the Christmas fundraiser, to raise money for school clothes, shoes and bags. Although our visibility this year was a lot less than last year due to some changes on Facebook, we still were able to get pretty close to our target. Thanks to everyone who contributed to that fund. The children were so happy to have new clothes and shoes.

In February we have some visitors from the UK and Portugal. Marina, Hannah, and John, who have all visited Pulane before, are at the Centre for about a month, helping out in various ways. John has plans to improve the electrical infrastructure at the Centre, and the ladies plan to spend lots of valuable time with the kids, doing art, extra lessons, and all the important stuff that children need after school.

As PCC enters its tenth year, we are excited to see how we can be more and more relevant, in reaching more children, providing better all around care, and having a home that children and staff are proud of. Thank you to everyone, over the years, who has built PCC into what it is today. We look forward to what the next ten years will bring!