KICKING OFF THE YEAR!

As Bulelani from the Thokozani Brothers is doing up here...

Khayelitsha is busy, the summer is still hot and our work does not wait for us!

2007 is promising to be an incredibly rich year. It feels like we've been going for a month and it's actually only a week.

We've had a few conversations with the good people from the one man can campaign check out www.genderjustice.org/onemancan and the toolkits are ready to be implemented! Sonke is going to work with us in the first three months of the year to engage the community of Khayelitsha in a variety of ways, murals, marches, training etc.

Our friends across the province in all the towns we visited during 16 days were very motivated and I do not intend to let them down. We are working hard to get our training programme nailed down to a firm plan.

Another area we are developing is work with the boys that go to initiation school and the men that return. There are various aspects that affect health that need some awareness pre and post and we are very excited about this avenue of work.

As Pati would remind us, the area of crime and gangsterism is essential to focus on when working with men. We look forward to working with the Chrysalis academy and the salesians insitute this year.

I'm very hyped about a trip I'm going on next week with David, my regional coordinator and Marisca my colleague who manages the OVC program in Khayelitsha.

We are going to visit Umzi Wethu in Port Elizabeth, it combines wilderness work with leadership with youth at risk, it sounds amazing, watch this space for the impact.

Well, a few words to kick off the year, all I can say further is that I hope you are all well, and come and listen to our gigs!