The Omprakash Foundation
Partnership with the Amy Biehl Foundation
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Project Profile
The Amy Biehl Foundation (www.amybiehl.co.za), an organization operating out of Cape Town, South Africa, reaches over 3,000 underprivileged children per week by providing them with after-school opportunities including art, music, sports, and tutoring. Please contact willy@omprakash.org if you want to support this organization. Partnership History The Amy Biehl Foundation has been an Omprakash Partner since September, 2007. -On October 3, 2007, we transferred $10,000 to the Amy Biehl Foundation to enable the opening of a new after-school center in Guguletu township. The annual costs of this project will be about $25,000. Through our partnership with the Amy Biehl Foundation, we hope to be able to support this new project in years to come. Need for Volunteers The Amy Biehl Foundation accepts volunteers year-round. The text below demonstrates the organization´s eagerness to receive energetic volunteers who can help mentor and teach children in need of their attention. Need for Material Resources The text below elucidates the annual costs of the new after-school center that Omprakash has begun to support. Please take the time to read through these emails from Kevin Chaplin, the project´s director, and consider helping us meet the needs of this organization.
From: Kevin Chaplin [mailto:kevin@amybiehl.co.za] HI Willy Sorry for not replying earlier. Great to hear from you. We have started off slow. There are 43 children and we are not pushing for more now as it is our end of school year at the end of this month and the children are all learning for tests and exams. They break up from 28 November until 23 January next year. I think your schools have that at the middle of the year as opposed to ours now. We are doing simple art, songs and games with the children now and next year from 25 January will go on a big recruitment drive to get a minimum of 100 children and will run 5 classes of 20 with music, art, sport and dance being taught. We are giving the children a sandwich and cold drink every day and they are loving it. We have one lady, Mrs Peter running the aftercare for us at the moment and next year we will have 5 facilitators working with her. We are busy interviewing candidates for next year. We are also busy assessing if this is the best venue for the aftercare and will make a decision whether to continue at this venue in Ntshinga next year or move to a better venue from end of January 2008, will let you know at the end of the year. A lot of the children go back to the rural areas of the Eastern Cape for the holidays but those that stay should be 20 from the 45 and we will have a camp for them and the children combined from our other 2 centres. We are busy planning this now – it will be from 3 December - 7 December and will update you on that. We do not have photos yet, our camera was stolen but we are busy getting a new one at the end of the month. In the meantime I will send you some photos that you can put on the website of our children at the other centre so people get an idea. The $ 25 000 will be allocated as follows: Foodsupplies : $ 4500 Co-ordinator & Facilitators : $ 10500 Transport : $ 2000 Materials, stationery & Supplies : $ 3000 Admin : $ 1000 Equipment : $ 1000 Outings & Events : $ 3000 Thanks again Willy for helping to make a difference where it is so badly needed. Take care and keep in touch. Kind regards Kevin Chaplin Managing Director The Amy Biehl Foundation Trust 7th Floor 1 Plein Street Cape Town Phone 021-462 5052 Cell 083 564 5568 Email kevin@amybiehl.co.za From: Kevin Chaplin [mailto:kevin@amybiehl.co.za] Sent: Wed 10/10/2007 6:27 AM To: William Oppenheim Subject: RE: [BULK] RE: Friends from the Jhburg airport HI Willy The age of the children will be 6 – 14 years old. The activities will be art classes, different music classes in recorders, choral and opera singing, the 6 and 7 year olds will be in a Foundation phase class which will include simple and varied tasks for reading, co-ordination, numbers, drawing, painting etc. That is to start with, in time we will introduce violin, guitar, marimba, brass instruments, kwaito, modern and traditional dance, hockey, soccer, golf and HIV Peer Education. We will also introduce various life skills activities into all the classes from the word go even if they are learning recorders for example. We will also give the children a minimum of one outing every 3 months like to a nature reserve or something interesting. It is important to get them out of the townships as well. Each child will get a nutritional meal Monday to Thursday. Take care and have a great day. Kind regards Kevin Chaplin Managing Director The Amy Biehl Foundation Trust 7th Floor 1 Plein Street Cape Town Phone 021-462 5052 Cell 083 564 5568 Email kevin@amybiehl.co.za From: William Oppenheim [mailto:woppenhe@bowdoin.edu] Dear Kevin, I am pleased to tell you that I just transferred $10,000 USD to your account. I hope to find time this weekend to add information about this project to my website, and might contact you for more info. Good luck, and keep me posted. My best, Willy From: Kevin Chaplin [mailto:kevin@amybiehl.co.za] HI Willy That is wonderful news. $ 10 000 will enable us to commence and run the 3rd after school centre and will ensure we can make a huge difference. We can start off slowly and build up to more children so that you do not have to worry about further funding until you are able to, hopefully by March 2008. If we build up slowly with our children numbers and facilitators we can make the $ 10 000 last until March and you can send whatever you are able to when you are able to. I will also be out raising funds for all our programmes and expansion thereof and so can always put on hold some initiatives and ensure that our 3rd after school centre is sustainable and continues smoothly. I assure you the $ 10 000 will get it going and together we will ensure it continues and makes a huge contribution in the community and to the children. I am eager to get going and meet with the community. If you are happy to send the $ 10 000 we will begin with the new after school on 3 October. I look forward to hearing from you and thank you so, so much. I greatly appreciate and value your support. Kind regards Kevin Chaplin Managing Director The Amy Biehl Foundation Trust 7th Floor 1 Plein Street Cape Town Phone 021-462 5052 Cell 083 564 5568 Email kevin@amybiehl.co.za From: William Oppenheim [mailto:woppenhe@bowdoin.edu] Dear Kevin, Thank you for all of those details. Here is the short and sweet of it: we can send you $10,000 now. We can work on raising more money, but I can't guarantee another 15k by January. I don't want to give you money to start the project and then have it dry up. I am hopeful about our fundraising capacities, but as I said, I can't make any guarantees. How do you think we should move forward? My best, Willy From: Kevin Chaplin [mailto:kevin@amybiehl.co.za] HI Willy Great to hear from you. Sorry I am only replying now, been out of office a lot. It is an answer to my prayers to hear you are tentatively very interested in supporting a new after-school centre. To clarify the centres – yes, we had 3 last year but we closed the Mseki one earlier this year and merged the children into Nomlinganiselo and Qinqa After-school centres. We used to get funding from USAID but after Iraq they advised us that their budgets had been cut from $ 200 million to $ 13 million for international aid and that President Bush only wanted this spent on Hiv Aids Treatment so they regrettably had to cut our funding. This was sudden and left us with quite a dilemma as we had never needed to source funding in SA. It is very difficult raising funds here simply because there is so much poverty, unemployment, HIV Aids, etc etc and Corporates and Individuals are not so far advanced with their Corporate Social investment here as in the USA. I am pleased to tell you that we are one of the few organisations to have been able to survive despite USAID funding stopping, many others were forced to close down. I am proud to tell you that we have managed to raise good support in SA, it has been a lot of hard work to raise the profile but we have succeeded and have positioned ourselves as sustainable and a powerful change agent in the country. We have also initiated various initiatives so that we are never dependant on one funder again. We now have support from 15 major corporates and 150 individuals. We also have Amy’s Bread which is sold in Retails outlets and we get 3% of the sale price, a loyalty card with a top retailer where we get 1 % of everyone’s purchases, have introduced Amy’s Cultural Township Tours, an Annual Fundraiser, Amy Biehl Youth Spirit Awards, Annual Township Jazz Festival, Amy’s Rose to be launched in December where we get R 10 of every rose sold in the nurseries and stores. So, you do not need to worry about sustainability if you fund us. We also have the support of the Provincial Government Dept of Social Service and Poverty Alleviation, except their contribution is so small as they have so many challenges to deal with. As we had to start from scratch with our funding here in SA last year I took the decision early in the year to rather focus on 2 after school centres until we are able to open more. It has got to the point now where the numbers have become far too much for those centres in terms of infrastructure etc and we wish to open the third one next month. We have chosen Thandoluntu in Guguletu as it is well positioned in terms of location etc. We already have 100 children signed up waiting for us to open and we will take 50 from each of our existing Nomlinganiselo and Qinqa to make those ones more manageable. Guguletu is one of the poorest townships with 100’s of children left with no supervision in the afternoon. Up to 80 000 people a year are coming to Cape Town from the rest off SA and Africa looking for employment and a better life and the Resources in the Cape cannot cope. It is a crisis to have all these children out on the streets in the poverty stricken townships as they are influenced by all the negative factors such as drugs, sex, gangs etc which are all out of control there. Violence and crime is on the increase and we need to get children off the streets and focused on healthy alternatives. The children that we get to the new centre and developed and empowered, given hope and a brighter future, unlock their creative talent and are given the opportunities to become future leaders and well rounded global citizens. Children that come through our programmes are focused on the disciplines we involve them in, learn life skills and learn to say no to the negative influences and temptations. The activities at the after School centre place a focus on the creative side of the children’s brains, and supplement the shortcomings of the educational systems. There are great inadequacies in the impoverished township schools in which we work, creating a great need for our programmes. During the course of the school day many students are not given the opportunity to tap into the creative side of their brain. Through our programmes we allow children to supplement what they learn during the course of the school day with creative programmes that let them express themselves and think freely in an imaginative environment. Providing these students with meaningful opportunities helps to grow the economy moving forward, as the next generation will be better equipped to deal with the challenges of tomorrow. The $ 25 000 will cover costs for one year, which covers the following ; co-ordinator, facilitators/teachers, food for the kids, stationery, material, small admin costs and transport. In succeeding years the costs would still be approximately $ 25 000 as the costs do not require any capital outlay on buildings etc. You could start off with what you can afford now so we can get the centre open from October and then as you raise extra funding you send it to us. If you are able to send us $ 10 000 we could get going immediately and you could then send the rest later say early in 2008. In year 2 as long as we know of your ability to continue funding early enough we can plan as some of our sustainable income would come through and we know we will get more funders supporting what we do. I hope I have answered your questions but please do not hesitate to ask if there are more. I eagerly await to hear from you and hope you will partner with us in making a difference where it is so badly needed. Kind regards Kevin Chaplin Managing Director The Amy Biehl Foundation Trust 7th Floor 1 Plein Street Cape Town Phone 021-462 5052 Cell 083 564 5568 Email kevin@amybiehl.co.za From: William Oppenheim [mailto:woppenhe@bowdoin.edu] Dear Kevin, Thanks for your email, and sorry for the short delay in responding. Tentatively, I want to say that we are very interested in supporting a new after-school care center. I have several questions-- first of all, I'm confused about the number you already have; you said in your email that you already have two, but in a document you sent to me earlier, you said you have three: "one each at the Nomlinganiselo, Mseki and Qingqa schools, each hosting over 150 students per day." can you please clarify this? and could you possibly tell me a little more about the location of the new center, and why the desperate need for it? my other question concerns sustainability. after the 25,000 dollars for the first year, what would costs look like in succeeding years? i'd love to be able to take this whole center under our wing, but at the moment it seems a little beyond our financial capabilities. however, if you tell me more about the project, we could start fundraising for it more deliberately. look forward to hearing more from you, Willy From: Kevin Chaplin [mailto:kevin@amybiehl.co.za] Hi Willy It was so good to receive your email, sorry I have not replied earlier, few problems with the server and then have been battling to catch up on all the emails. Please forgive me. I am so excited and appreciative for your offer of help and support. It is amazing how we were meant to meet at the baggage area in the airport of all places. We look forward to working with you and hopefully you will have some volunteers for us soon. It would be great if you could assist us financially, it would be an answer to many prayers. In terms of specific projects that would be perfect. Here are some options: 1. We have 2 after care centres and the need is for at least 6 more. What about assisting us to get another one open – we desperately need to open at least one as soon as possible - it would need $ 25 000 to cover costs for one year, which covers the following ; co-ordinator, facilitators/teachers, food for the kids, stationery, material, small admin costs and transport. 2. We need to grow our music programme as there is a dire need to keep children focused – we need a music co-ordinator which will cost us $ 15 000 for one year and musical instruments which will be $ 10 000. 3. We need to grow our HIV Aids Peer Education programme and require $ 25 000 to cover the following : 2 HIV Aids Peer educators, stationery, materials, transport 4. We need a vehicle to transport our children around and to training, events and performances – to hire a vehicle - $ 2000 per month or to purchase a 15 seater - $ 30 0000 5. We wish to commence Saturday morning programmes for children – costs for one year $ 1000 per month - $ 12 000 per annum. The children are susceptible to lots of negative influences on a Saturday in the townships and we need to keep them off the streets. 6. We wish to have more art lessons for children and an annual competition – costs $ 1000 per month - 2 teachers and material. 7. We want to introduce the Annual Amy Biehl Spirit Awards for youth – costs $ 12 500 covers material, stationery, advertising, PR, Final competition and awards. 8. We want to run school holiday programmes for the children at camps – October and December – costs $ 14 000 which includes accommodation, meals, outings, facilitators for the camps. 9. We want to introduce a beading, glass bottle painting and wire products classes for children – cost $ 8000 covers material, stationery, facilitators 10. We need to revamp our golf driving range which is the first and only golf range for children in a black township – cost $ 25 000 Willy, let me know what you think? I eagerly await to hear form you. Kind regards Kevin Chaplin Managing Director The Amy Biehl Foundation Trust 7th Floor 1 Plein Street Cape Town Phone 021-462 5052 Cell 083 564 5568 Email kevin@amybiehl.co.za |
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