​This year Angie Beltane from the Cowichan Valley made her first visit as a volunteer to South Africa and I introduced her to Ukulapha in Slangspruit KZN. She was invited to share her skills as an organic farmer creating a garden at the Slangspruit primary school. I offered a few trauma first aid workshops to teachers and community members. Four Canadians interns were also at the school and they certainly enriched the school. We stayed with Nelly in the township and were entertained by the local children who I had met when Gary and I lived in the community for two months a few years ago. Thanks Angie for your amazing contribution! 

I leave Cape Town tomorrow morning after 5 weeks. I spoke in the blog of January 9 about the richness of playing and working here in the sun and surf. I would swim each morning and walk on the beach and then get ready for the day.  I will give more of a picture overview this time. The two initiatives I am involved with are Khayelitsha grief and loss project founded and headed by Nontobeko Moni and Love and Care Day centre founded and headed by Aurelia Kaitesi.
Love and Care is in a new and welcome phase as Aurelia is able to share some of the responsibility with her new Board of Governors who are really interested in Love and Care becoming a bona fida pre-school for children. Aurelia has for the past 12 years been principal, fund raiser, curriculum developer, parent liaison, emergency child care worker, networker with agencies and government departments, teacher, buyer of food and other supplies, building supervisor and repair supervisor, financial reporter, landlady and on and on.  It was much more than was possible to keep on top of. Love and Care is getting ready for registration with the social development department and once this is done there will be some regular monthly funds which will pay teachers and other staff. The second building on the property which houses the classrooms was built by an Irish builder who used poor materials and ultimately left the country without finishing. Aurelia has, as small funds have come in, been fixing up what he left behind.
I am hoping we can raise funds in Canada to get everything ready to pass health regulations and building safety. The property must also be transferred from agricultural zoning to school.
Please put out the word and let’s gather CA$12,000 which should do it.  Let me know if you have some leads.
Khayelitsha Grief and Loss Project is in its fourth year and they plan on reaching 800 children in 2016 providing 10 week support groups for children who have lost someone they love. The faci;itators are also able to identify children in dire need of clothing a school supplies. The funds from Canada go through VIDEA (Victoria International Development Education Association). Nontobeko decided to add trauma first aid this year so I provided a workshop to some of the facilitators and youth (there were cute babies there as well. They were really impressed at the sense of calm they experienced and said, “It was definitely useful and the children will really benefit.”
Nontobeko is applying to another funder as well and if she gets the funding then 1500 children should benefit. Schools are asking for more groups, children who have been in groups are wanting more emotional support. Both are saying children are more able to learn because of these groups so are doing better at school. Check out the Khayelitsha website (in process)
http://www.khayelitshagriefandlossproject
I head to the Ukulapha Project next for 2 weeks with Angie, a friend from Cowichan and after that 2 weeks in Zimbabwe, so til then I wish you a warm heart and a healthy body.
Love and blessings
Heather
 

We must understand the causes of suffering and deal with our own afflicted states (mind and emotions). The cause is self-grasping, believing in the I, me, and mine. I recently read the book Radiance of Tomorrow by Ishmael Beah, who weaves his tale from the history of war, mining and the undermining of cultural ways in Africa. It was set in the Central African Republic, but it could have been any of a number of countries, where the people have been 'sold out' by corporate greed. Governments are handing over their countries for economic benefit.
I am shocked, like many other readers, at the treatment of the locals and it is hard to see my part in it. Rutile is a mineral being mined for our benefit so that we can have tiny electronic devices like cameras, cell phones, computers and so on (titanium - it makes very light metal. Coltan is another such metal). Karmically we are involved in the way the mining companies are treating community members in Africa, and the garment workers in the sweat shops of Bangladesh, and the indigenous people whose land is being ruined by corporate oil companies. We have desires, we want what makes our lives easier. We want the latest, the fastest and the best deal.
Money has developed into a mighty power. It breaks my heart to hear elders in Africa and indigenous North Americans speak of cultural ways that kept people connected to the earth and one another, and their worry for the young, who are exchanging these values for those of self cherishing - immediate satisfaction of such a temporary nature.
This time calls for courage and the cultivation of kindness and compassion, not merely as an idea, but in the way we treat others including the earth and all beings. In this way we can be free from fear and experience true happiness.
It is simple:

• slow down and be still (even for a few moments)
• notice thoughts for what they are.......just words passing through in thought form
• smile and connect with self and others
• remember the kindness you have experienced from others and focus on that
• before responding to an impulse tap your tongue against your top palate 7 times and settle your energy
• spend time in nature regularly (even near a tree in the city)
• don't take your self too seriously remembering it is through giving that we receive
• when suffering seems present recognize it as karma burning off and breathe and let go
  

It is heartening to hear that children are being taught a very useful life skill and that teachers are interested in mindfulness.
I would encourage teachers who teach mindfulness to students to make it a regular practice themselves first as it is less a technique than a way of being. The children will see right through you if you do it otherwise.
I was a school counselor for many years and in times of great student stress I would teach meditation as part of stress management. The students said, "This is the best thing we have ever done, why is it not taught more?" A parent complained and said it was of the devil. I never did understand as focus, peace and kindness are not the usual attributes of the devil. I used a mindfulness bell in classrooms where there were a number of students who were labeled attention deficit disordered. It helped all the children to regulate their nervous systems and the teacher bought her own bell as the ADD labeled kids had respite from the hyper activity and began to focus more.
It is interesting how this idea of teaching children mindfulness brings up defensiveness in some people who feel that it is religion. There is no dogma nor teachings in mindfulness other than focus, peace and kindness which is really the core of most religions until they are claimed by dogmatic zealots.  It is true mindfulness is a guiding practice brought to the West by Buddhist teachers who have generously given permission for mindfulness to be used wherever it is useful. It is certainly not all that Buddhism teaches and one of the founding principles is that no-one should proselytize. Another is an instruction to any practitioner to use their own minds to decide what is right for them. If it works do it. The Science of Mind conferences bring scientists and others together to compare research that will be of benefit to all people regardless of religion. The Contemplative Christians are always part of this discussion.
Fear and separation lead to anxiety and sometimes depression and people are suffering. Mindfulness is a useful antidote to suffering and as the young woman on the recent CBC interview said, "You get out of it what you put into it."