A holiday programme with a difference

The past three weeks of school holidays were either very boring or extremely fun and educational for school goers.

The Riverlea Holiday programme catered for almost 300 children every day for the past three weeks.

A team who worked with the children on a daily basis was from Riverlea and the surrounding areas, non-profit organisations such as FAMSA, Helping Hands, REACH, the Agnes Ferley Foundation, Newclare Primary School, the Riverlea Recreation centre management, City of Johannesburg, and volunteers such as the BK Academy, UNiQUE, churches, and individuals from the community all made this holiday programme a success.

Programme director, Milly Harris explained that the programme catered for children from the age of 3 years old and went up to young adults between the ages of 21 and 22.

Management used the opportunity to provide leadership skills to the older children and gave them classes to look after.

City Parks came in and worked with certain age groups, they played a video and had some explosion activity with the children.

According to Harris, a normal day is comprised of skills development, art, drama, music, education, then they take the children to the library to do story-telling, after which the children were sent back to the hall to draw what they’ve understood from the story.

“There are a lot of children who can read but not understand. Thatis the reason we wanted to assist them after school because that’s the reason they fail during exam time,” said Harris.

Social workers were in and out of the programme, providing the children with life skills.

Cathleen Jones from FAMSA also provided counselling for those children who were in need of it.

Various volunteers walked in and taught the children skills. BK Academy taught the children how to turn their skills and talents into a business.

For a few days the children learnt the art of karate, ballet, and on July 13, they had ‘hair day’ where a group of local barbers and hairstylists gave the children haircuts and a few provided a few lessons on how to do braiding.

The Westbury Hub also had sports days with the children on the soccer grounds and a few coaches also volunteered their time to teach the children a few skills.

“It’s so busy, we are so blessed that so many people are coming to assist,” said Harris.

The children were all fed breakfast and lunch every day and once again it was made possible by all sponsors and volunteers.

Harris explained: “The purpose of the holiday programme is to teach them skills, and then take those skills further so this is where the sewing classes started three years ago.”

The holiday programme ended off on Friday, July 21 with a huge talent show where children got to show what they learnt over the three weeks at the programme.

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