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Dula Sentle was founded in 2001 by Gill Fonteyn. A teacher for disabled children who immigrated to Botswana and changed his Belgium for the Botswana nationality. He had worked with disabled children in Botswana and became aware of the increasing necessity to found a day care center for orphaned children. Most of them have lost their parents due to the HIV/AIDS pandemic, others through accidents or other illnesses.
The Centre you can see above was built within a year and now has 130 children that come daily after school. They are grouped into three age groups, the beetles, the grasshoppers. and the skorpions. They receive lunch at the Center and then, depending on their age groups, undertake various activities such as computer courses, supervised homework and schooling help, councelling sessions and discussions, play, sports and most of all music lessons. Gill has identified music as a means for the children to overcome their sorrows and help in coping with their daily lives.
The children produced a CD in 2004 with their songs that is being sold to support the center and teach the youths that participated in making it that it takes time and effort in order to generate financial income. Listen to a sample of their songs from the new CD and if you enjoy it you may purchase it at smart@it.bw and directly contribute to the self sustainability of Dula Sentle.
The Capricorn foundation assisted Dula Sentle in finalizing the showroom and camp site. Both are expected to generate sufficient income and ensure its long term self sustainability.
The Showroom is situated on the main road that leads from South Africa into Botswana and exhibits furnitures built by the workshop at Dula Sentle.
The Camp Site, including a swimming pool, was constructed to offer accomodation to tourists that travel from South Africa into Botswana. Further it will also be used as a training center in orphan care for social workers accross the country. Guests permitting, it will also function as a supervised entertainment area for youths from the village on weekends. The first workshops will start in April 2006.
Further in 2005 a jungle gym was built for the younger children to play on and an urgently needed sick bay was errected to house children at risk in their extended families until more suitable homes can be found or built.
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A VIDEO is available that will show those interested what Otse and Dula Sentle are all about, it may take a few minutes to load. If you cannot load it save it to your PC and open it from there with Windows Media Player
>>> watch the video by clicking here video link (22MB) <<<<
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