Headway Khomelela ALexandra

Headway Khomelela, our first outreach branch in Alexandra
Khomelela has been running since 2004 at the Alexandra Health Centre & University Clinic, 33 Arkwright Ave. Wynberg.  Khomelela, which means ‘never give up’ is a fully sponsored project meaning that our families don’t pay fees of any kind. 

The centre is run according to the same premises and programmes as our main branch and includes Speech Therapy, Occupational Therapy, Physiotherapy and Biokinetics. Various other activities such as drumming, music relaxation and beading take place and outings and guest speakers are arranged. Counselling, assessments and home visits are also organised and awareness campaigns at local clinics, schools and other community organisations take place frequently.  The purpose of these campaigns is to educate the community about brain injury and to source those families in need of Headway’s services.  Transport to and from the centre is available to the attendees and a hot meal is provided daily.
 

MASIYE PHAMBILI’
KHOMELELA ATTENDEE INCOME GENERATION PROJECT

Our Attendee Income Generation Programme has been up and running for some time now and has formally been given the name of “Masiye Phambili” by our attendees, which means ‘let’s go forward’ in Zulu. And going forward we are! With the help of the Davies Foundation (who gave us a donation to ‘kick-start’ the project) and the Heartfelt Foundation, we were able to make beautiful cards, decorations and key rings which brought in a small profit at the end of the year for those attendees involved.

We are now fortunate enough to have Sharize Lategan (Occupational Therapist) as our Project Manager who with the help of Cynthia Ngidi (Occupational Therpay Assistant) has been inspiring the group with new and innovative ideas. We have recently received an order for 50 Heartfelt cards. In the middle of each heart are the words “Joy” “Love” “Peace” or “Hope” hand sewn by our attendees. Every stitch is a stitch of love and a commitment to our project.

Sheila Meyerowitz (the Volunteer Coordinator at Hyde Park) who is experienced in ‘beading’ has taken on the task of teaching the group to make beaded jewellery. The project has taken off with renewed enthusiasm and the work is proving to be of a high standard.

Headway is looking forward to “Masiye Phambili” going from strength to strength with the help of the general public. Through the sale of the products as made by our attendees we hope to eventually enable this group to contribute in a small way to supporting themselves.

Headway booklets distributed to main trauma wards in Gauteng

Our first order
Members of our Khomelela branch visited The Heartfelt Project in Makapanstad recently to attend a workshop to develop various crafts which could be incorporated into a future income generation project for our attendees.  The founders of this project, Julie Masureik and Martha Letsoalo developed a self help programme in their community after Martha lost her son in tragic circumstances and in memory of Martha’s son, all the crafts they develop use the shape of a heart somewhere in the design, the heart being a symbol of love.  With Julie and Martha’s help our Headway group is now also making Heartfelt greeting cards which will go on sale in the Netherlands, making this our first ‘order’.  Our attendees are enthusiastic about the idea and production is in place.

A project to make cards for the Netherlands

Collage

This colourful collage hangs in the entrance of our Khomelela centre and it was created for Khomelela by members of our main branch art class, run by one of our talented volunteers Arabella. The collage was presented to Khomelela on open day in September 2008

Recently, very proudly finished at Khomelela