Gap Year Students

Isaac

Tuesday hosted another session at St Raphael’s Special School, the first part being spent in the ‘Autistic unit’ and the second on continuing the parent workshops.

Unfortunately the teacher in whose class I was meant to be was absent. The only other staff member in the class of seven children was the classroom assistant, or as the position is called here, ‘house mother’. I managed to do ‘circle time’ with the children but, as I had never been in the class before and therefore didn’t know the children, that was about all they did in the day; the rest was free time.

There is no provision of cover staff here. It is a challenge faced by all schools but hits hardest the special needs schools.

The workshop on the other hand was very successful. It was the second of two sessions on the topic of communication. It featured communication strategies for people with and dealing with autism and learning disabilities and covered things like PECS/ Boardmaker symbols, sign language and Signalong and Intensive interaction. The response was so positive that there was content still to cover so we will continue it next week.

On Thursday morning, Russel, Mjoli and I met with the current owner of the SISCO building. We thought it would be useful to make contact with him ourselves as dealings with him always seem to be through one person or another. We also went to obtain a letter from him stating that we have permission to be in the building in this time to show to potential donors.

When we met him he seemed to be saying that his plans for the building had been approved and that at some time between six weeks and three months we would have to leave. That is unless we can raise the R3 million (just under £300,000) to buy it ourselves, which is our aim. He also said he would be wiling to write a letter explaining exactly this. I will go to a lawyer may provide advice for us on this, but in the mean time we will continue to look for a sponsor to buy the building.

I attended this morning on behalf of SISCO the monthly meeting of the KZN Shelter Movement, an interesting forum of shelters of all sorts throughout the province. We are not yet members of the group as there is a membership fee and our bank balance currently sits at around zero but it is a great group to be a part of, even though we are not yet full members.

I managed to make a few contacts that say they would like to come and see the centre. Perhaps they will offer us some help. If they are not able to at least it will be a good networking opportunity.