A Hanna Station usually starts off on any communal vacant land. We start off with combining a Soup Kitchen and a Clothing Bank Session. In this way we start working with the people, getting to know everybody’s challenges, but very important is, that it is here where friendships are formed.
In South Africa, poverty has become an enormous problem, which cannot be ignored. We have between eight thousand and nine thousand people across all six Hanna Stations that we run, to take care of, resulting into an almost impossible mission to feed all.
We endeavour to do monthly deliveries to some of the houses where people are maybe to sick or old to fetch a food parcel. (as we distribute same)
HEAD OFFICE
All donations are delivered to our Head Office where donations are sorted by several Volunteers / Staff Members under supervision of the Warehouse Manager.
This procedure ensures that donations are distributed evenly to the relevant areas where the specific donations are mostly needed. From time to time antique/ collectors items, jewellery and other valuable items are donated to the Charity . These items are sold in our Charity Shop. Funds raised in this way are utilised to buy so much needed food. It also puts our Head Office in a position to be self sustainable with no financial burden, whatsoever, to the Charity. Once donations are sorted our Charity vehicle delivers same to the relevant areas on a rotating basis.
SOUP KITCHENS
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. We provide the whole family with a cooked meal as well as a food parcel depending on sponsorships for that specific soup kitchen.
CLOTHING BANK
We open a clothing bank in a Wendy house where families can come and collect second hand clothing on a monthly basis to meet their specific needs. We also hand out clothes when we have our soup kitchens, depending on the donations we receive.
WOMANHOOD / SISTERHOOD
Women come together on a weekly basis to discuss any personal problems they may have with a professional councillor or psychologist. They also learn new skills such as needlework or crafts which they then continue to do during the week.
Womanhood is a lot of fun and the ladies sometimes go on outings outside of their community.
In Sisterhood, we support our teenage girls. We teach them very important life skills. Our councillor listens to their problems and specific needs and give guidance where needed. They also receive toiletries and special gifts depending on donations received from our sponsors. We assist them in becoming ladies and aspire to break the cycle of poverty they were born into by building on their dreams.
PRAYER GROUP
Some of the people from the communities get together once a week to pray for that specific community and their families.
This changes the mindset of the people and instead of fighting, they grow spiritually and support each other.
LIBRARIES
In each community we start a library in a Wendy. 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 world and realize new opportunities.
SKILLS DEVELOPMENT
We have different programs in our communities where we teach people new skills. The skills taught depends wholly on that of the Volunteers available to assist. Families learn new skills, like paper art, karate, sport pottery, acting, crochet etc.
We endeavour to teach them specials skills which they can apply to earn a little bit of extra money. Most our our people own only a few cents as they only sell newspapers for a living.
JOB CREATION
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 money to make a better living for their families.
MARVELOUS MOMMIES
This project is fairly new where we focus on “new mommies” and teach them the advantages of nutritional feeding, how to take care of a sick baby, milestones in the development of small children to look out for etc.
SAFEHOUSE
CLOSED DUE TO LACK OF FUNDING
One of the Hanna Charity & Empowerment Foundation’s biggest challenges / disappointments that we were ever faced with was in January 2019 when we had to close the doors of our Safehouse.
At the time, our facility had the capacity to accommodate six children. We could reunite two of the children with their families, with the hope and prayer that they will be safe and taken care this time around, but 4 children from one family had to be handed over to a Children’s Home.
If we had the funds to continue, we could change the Safe House over into a Foster Home. The House Parents where in a position to continue and was trying their best from October 2018, but eventually had to give up the “struggle” and admit that, without the necessary funds, we would not be able to continue with the Hanna House.
This was a emotional time for both the kids, as well as the House Parents who have lived with these specific kids for almost three years. We knew that this was the only way for these kids, which was removed from unsafe families, where they were severely traumatised and left on their own to survive, to have a fair chance to grow up to be worthy adults.
Areas we are registered to work…
