2005-10-10
Hello all!
Greetings from a beautiful springtime South Africa!
Here is some news of what is going on here in South Africa and especially at Deafblind South Africa.
On the capacity building side, the good news is that, I can now tell you that we have established two new branches – one in the Free State province and one in the Mpumulanga Province and now count with 5 branches in the 9 provinces of South Africa. Yes – we have strange names here in South Africa!
The new branch in Mpumulanga is definitely the fastest growing branch in Deafblind SA with already some 50 members within a year! While this may not sound too many, you must realise that the Mpumulanga Province is very big with many rural areas.
The Chairperson of this new Mpumulanga branch is Mr. Thulani Ndluli. He is blind and hard of hearing. Although Thulani is unemployed at present, he works very hard to identify deafblind persons in his province, despite the fact that he has very little resources and that it is often very difficult to reach the people. In some places in this province, you cannot even reach people by using a four wheel drive!
The branch in the Orange Free State is headed by Mr. Willem Taylor. Willie, as we all know him, is also blind and hard of hearing. He worked as a switchboard operator for many years and now has his own business manufacturing detergents for cleaning. The Vice-Chairperson of this branch is Ms. Lucy Magella, a young woman who is Deaf and partially sighted.
So now we have five branches in the nine provinces of South Africa i.e. Western Cape, KwaZulu-Natal, Gauteng, Free State and Mpumulanga.
Anyone of you who wants to contact us for further information or even just for a friendly chat, please mail me at natdir@deafblindsa.co.za. It will be wonderful to hear from you!
Until we meet again!
Greetings again from springtime South Africa
André van Deventer National Director
Deafblind South Africa