Wesley Methodist Church, Frome
with
Coleford Methodist Chapel
How Voices helps the SA Red Cross
We visit KwaZulu Natal (at our own expense) once a year. During this visit we check on progress with existing projects and agree any new ones, including budgets. Every project we fund is followed through to completion and we always report back with photographs of the finished buildings.
All monies we raise are sent to the SA Red Cross via the British Red Cross in London. Every penny is accounted for. We take nothing for administration.
We are in constant touch with SA Red Cross management in Durban during the life of a project.
Voices against Cholera and AIDS
Established in Frome, Voices raises funds exclusively for the South African Red Cross in KwaZulu Natal. Click here to learn about the work of the South African Red Cross Society.
Originally formed to help combat a major Cholera outbreak, Voices now supports the Red Cross in a country where AIDS is rife and poverty often crippling. Here are some examples of what Voices has funded and plans to do next.
Cholera
To combat Cholera, fresh water and toilets were needed.
We provided water, via tanks like this one, to 2 schools. Previously they fetched water in buckets from a nearby pond. 2,000 children and staff now drink clean water and wash their hands.
We also provided 3 schools with blocks of latrines (2 blocks to each school). This means almost 3,000 children and 100 staff now have at least basic toilet facilities where there were none.
The pictures below show a 'classroom' for pre-school children. During a visit in connection with the water tank project, it was noted that the rafters of this building were rotted-through, and the roof was in imminent danger of collapse. Voices realised that providing a new building must be their next project, to be completed as soon as possible. In fact the roof failed before the new build was complete, but by the grace of God no-one was inside.
From this...
To this.
Voices also managed to facilitate a new piano, kindly donated by the Soweto Gospel Choir.
AIDS
The AIDS epidemic could not be ignored so, at the request of the SA Red Cross, Voices turned to raising money for Red Cross Community Centres. These are used partly as creches for orphans during the day, (enabling older siblings to attend school before coming home to look after the youngest), and partly as training and adult education centres.
So far Voices has funded a centre in Zululand, close to the spot where Zulu kings sited their headquarters and another at Ladysmith, site of the famous Boer War siege and Relief.
These centres give the Red Cross vastly improved coverage of a province larger than the combined area of Wales and Scotland.
A third centre is now a pressing issue enabling distributions to be made much closer to the place of need.Zululand
Ladysmith
