First of all, we would like to thank all donors, volunteers and sponsors. In the timeline below you can see at a glance what we have been able to achieve thanks to your help and support. What have we already done?
2025
Building our new facilities is working out fantastic.
Our own vegetable garden (6x 15 metres long, with a green house) is moved to the Masechaba premises, the playground is in use again.
In September we were able to open our new facilities, so now we can carefully and gradually invite more kids to Masechaba.
Funfact: our garden even grew a huge watermelon, something we never imagined possible.
2024
Huge plans !!!
We started a project to refresh and expand our facilities. All this happens at amazing pace, permits and the build itself is going incredibly fast.
By the end of 2024 we’ve made great progress so we can quickly expand for more children.
We also planted citrus- and fig trees on our premises.
2023
Sadly, we lost our dear teacher Refiloe and our technical magician Petrus this year. Together with our staff and children we managed deal with these losses.
In February, the Zienderogen Foundation visited as again and in October Bert Koopman delivered and fitted over 300 pairs of spectacles.
Lastly, a great team of Dutch Masechaba Friends planted a lot of apple trees on our land.
Back in the Netherlands, Rotary Weidevenne and Round Table 60 Waterland made very large donations to our foundations. These donations enabled us design very ambitious plans for expansion of our facilities.
2022
The COVID-19 pandemic remains harsh, but gladly the end seems to be getting closer
In April, Bert Koopman pays us a visit and we’re making plans to re-open Masechaba again.I
It’s so spectacular seeing “our kids” grow, play and develop again!
2021
In 2021 Maschaba constantly followed government guidelines, resulting in various moments of opening and closing our school. We had to remain very flexible with supporting our children with any sort of care and food.
2020
In February, the Zienderogen Foundation visited us again; measured eyes for over 1200 local habitants. This all happened at Maluti school, where many of our Masechaba children, other kids and locals without health-insurance were examined.
A couple of months later, over 300 spectacles were delivered and professionally
Later in 2020 we had to close our facilities due to the COVID-19 pandemic; we quickly made a plan for distributing food to homes, ensuring we continue to support our children and others who need it most.
2018 / 2019
Continuity and care are our main focus.
Volunteers of Masechaba Foundation South Africa take over from Hospice. Hospice could no longer support us (due to financial restrictions by the government), so we took over ourselves.Continuïteit en zekerheid staan in 2018 en 2019 voorop!
We are extremely proud of our team – how they took over, taking into account we had to gradually scale down the number of kids to 60.
2016
In this year, the Zienderogen Foundation examined eyes for nearly 1200 local children.
This resulted in nearly 200 pairs of spectacles for children.
These spectacles make enormous impact, some children had very poor eye-sight; now they can see, learn to read and have a brighter future ahead.
2016
A permanent unit for eye measurement was instelled in Bethlehem. Thanks to Essilor Nederland, Holland Optical Instruments and Koopman optiek, we can annually initiate projects for eyesight examinations.
2015
Sadly, we need to invest quite a lot in security and protection features to ensure our (and children’s) safety. This year we installed video intercom, camera systems and new locks to our building.
2015
The Masechaba Day Care Centre has received a fantastic (close to new) playground from The International School of Amsterdam.
Our kids thoroughly enjoy playing on these fantastic new facilities; they never saw such a spectacular playground!
2015
A new “bakkie” for Masechaba.
For both the food-program and transportation of kids, this new car serves fantasticly.
Mpho drives it with great pride and the kids love the new, typical South African transport when they are picked up from the Squatter Camps and brought to our daycare.
2014
A new greenhouse and milling cutter help us become lots more productive on our farm. Since recently we’re able to provide meals to extra locations.
Healthy meals are of great importance for the strength, resilience and school results of children.
2014
The International School of Amsterdam (ISA) donated their current playground to the Masechaba Foundation. We carefully dismantled these swings, playing houses, slides etc to ship them to South Africa in large containers.
There, our friends of Round Table 60 Bethlehem put them back together, based on our instructions.
2013
We started the Food Program this year, aiming to serve 2000 children a healthy meal on a daily basis. We are very grateful for the support by the FarmSecure organisation.
2013
This year, we kicked off our Container Project.
We aim to ship one container per year, full of items that can be used very well in South Africa.
School materials, wheelchairs, furniture, bicycles, you name it, we sent it.
2012
We made a start, growing our own veggies and fruit. This enables us to both feed our children with healthy meals, it also helps in education.
2011
Four additional classrooms were built. With the current regulations, we are able to serve 200 children.
2009
Opening Masechaba Day Care Centre.
In our great new Centre, we are able to provide essential education, care and food for local children.
2008
We started building our very ambitious Masechaba DayCare Centre, aiming to provide a safe and bright future for children in the Bethlehem area.
2007
The land where we aim to build our very own Masechaba DayCare Centre has been purchased. Now we can develop our facilities here.
2007
Together with Hospice Golden Gateway we’re supporting very sick children with the care they need.
Medication, mental care, we aim to do anything for these poor kids.
2006
By selling chains for spectacles at many optics dealers across The Netherlands we raised € 100.000,-. A fantastic amount, which will serve as extra motivation to start our great ambitions in Bethlehem, South Africa.