Our Projects
In the heart of our community stands a beacon of hope, compassion, and transformation – Hanna Charity. With roots deeply entrenched in the ethos of service and love, our nonprofit organisation reaches out to those in need, ensuring that every individual has a chance at a brighter future.
Soup Kitchen
We start in a community with a soup kitchen to earn the people’s trust and to get to know the families and their specific needs.
Freshly prepared food is handed out to each family within our communities. Our goal is to have a soup kitchen once a week or at least once a month in all the different areas. We have thousands of people within all our areas. Some of these people rarely receive fresh food and are dependent on support from our charity.
Clothing Bank
We either install a small wendy or container or make use of available space within each area to use as a clothing bank. We keep donated clothing and household items and hand them out to people in need.
We try to hand out clothes on a monthly sometimes weekly basis. We have also put a system in place in order to make sure that items go to people who are really in need. A reward system also allows our teams to fairly and equally distribute special donations such as deodorant or body lotion.
Food Parcels
As we’ve discovered and established throughout our years doing charity and community work, one of the biggest and most challenging needs is FOOD. Most people within our communities are either unemployed(due to various reasons ranging from economy/disability/lack of education/age etc) or works for a very small amount and that money is used to pay rent. Thus no money is left for food throughout each month. Our main goal is to hand out proper food parcels to each household once a month.
In December we hand out proper food parcels to each household that can carry them through the month of December and January when our charity staff takes a break.
Library
In some of our communities, we started a library in a Wendy or container. Our librarian is usually one of the older ladies from the community who has great people skills and desperately needs an income. The Library has developed into a place where, not only the children can do homework and/or their projects, but the whole family is being motivated to start reading books to empower themselves with knowledge, open up new worlds and realize new opportunities.
Little House and Aftercare
Through our years of close involvement and support in our communities, we have discovered a great need for early childhood development. We have identified the need to take children and give them the necessary tools, love, and support to develop their full potential and to give these parents a chance to search for work whilst their children are in school.
In South Africa ECD is not compulsory resulting in parents not being able to apply for school fee subside, (even though studies has shown ECD to play such a vital role in the Later school years of children). We had to do something!
We are extremely proud to announce that we have established registered early childhood development schools within most areas. Our Schools are registered with SA Childcare Services. Children under the age of 6 years can be registered in our Litte House schools where they receive free education, love, and up to 3 meals(Breakfast, Snack, and Lunch). These services are absolutely free to parents within our communities. We believe that we have to work closely with parents in order to achieve maximum outcomes. All our staff is qualified and trained as another project of Hanna Charity and Empowerment Foundation(Please see more info on the Empowerment page).
By opening these Educare centers in the poorest of the poor areas, we aim to ensure that care is taken of the physical needs of those who attend, while we educate them at the same time.
Our learning and development areas include: •Well-being
•Identity and Belonging
•Communicating
•Exploring Mathematics
•Creativity
•Knowledge and Understanding of the world.
After-school:
We also have established afterschool’s/homework centres where kids in Primary and High school can come and do homework and receive support from a teacher.
Students are also motivated to make use of our established libraries to do research for projects and to read as many books as they can.
Womanhood
Skills development project for women within our areas.
Women are encouraged to come and partake in a free session of skills development, upliftment, and sisterhood. One of the challenges that were identified within rural communities; is gender-based violence and the general mental health of women. Most women experience feeling trapped within their circumstances and feel that they do not have anything exciting or worthwhile happening in their life. These women are also generally without any source of income and can seldom support their families.
Through our womanhood project, we aim to enable these women to use their new or established skills to earn an income for themselves and their families.
Our womanhood projects invite skilled professionals to teach certain skills.
We also teach and motivate them to identify their own talent and we encourage them to be creative. With limited resources, we teach them to use what they have and to think out of the box.
A womanhood session is held either weekly or every second week.
Motherhood
New mothers are supported and trained by using a well-established program by professionals within the field of baby development and parenting. Mothers also receive basic necessities for their babies such as diapers and baby products. Mothers can support each other whilst learning about the responsibilities and benefits of active motherhood.
Skills Development and empowerment
As seen throughout all our different projects, it is evident that our goal is to offer hope to people who have lost all hope by giving them a hand of help (food, clothes, etc) and to restore their dignity by offering them opportunities (womanhood, motherhood, etc) to become the best version of themselves. Through our different programs in our communities, we are able to teach our people new skills. The skills taught depend wholly on the Volunteers available to assist. Families learn new skills, like paper art, karate, sport pottery, acting, crochet, etc. We endeavor to teach them special skills which they can apply to earn an income.
We believe in the famous saying: “Give a man a fish and he will have food for one day, but teach a man to fish and he will have food for the rest of his life”. We strive to empower people from our communities therefore we employ people from within a community. Most of our teachers are also from that specific community. we have been sending these teachers on numerous courses through SA childcare services and other well-known tertiary schools to build their knowledge and to ensure our little houses skilled and trained teachers.
Job Creation
As mentioned, we employ people from the community to help their own community. In every area, we only have one Area Manager. The rest of the people working at all the services we provide are people from that community that can now earn an income to make a better living for their families. Different employment in our areas include:
- Teachers (at least 2)
- Kitchen Staff
- Librarian
- Clothing Bank Assistant 5. Soup Kitchen Chef
- Gardener
- Rent (we use people’s yards or property to put up our wendy and pay them a monthly rent)
- Shop assistants
9.Sorters and Packers
Exercise and health
As we know in tough times we are left feeling stressed and depressed and regular exercise may help ease depression and anxiety by releasing feel- good endorphins, that can enhance your sense of well-being. And for this reason together with health benefits, people are encouraged to join the exercise group within our areas.
Group leaders are appointed to arrange basic training sessions such as walking, jumping rope, etc. People are then further motivated to partake in a yearly event by Spar called Spar Woman’s race. This event serves as a major motivator as these women get a chance to get out of these communities for a day and enjoy a 5km walk/run and enjoy a day filled with fun and laughter. We also believe in setting goals and having discipline and what a great way to teach goal setting through our exercise program.
Bible study and Prayer groups
Hanna Charity and Empowerment Foundation Synopsis
As a charity, we fully rely on God’s provision and we ask Him to take the lead in every decision that we make, without this we won’t be able to do what we do. Therefore we also offer fellowship and Bible study sessions by working together with local churches. Local pastors or church leaders usually lead these sessions. People from our communities can join these sessions. Sometimes we use these sessions to pray over our communities and for each other.
We also offer emotional and psychological support to people in need thereof.
Donate To Our Cause
We take great pride in our ability to maximize the impact of every donation we receive. Through strategic planning and careful allocation of resources, we ensure that your contribution goes directly towards empowering individuals, addressing critical needs, and fostering sustainable solutions.
