Barvely Von Luttichou - Tennis Program Manager

We recently took the kids on a field trip to a National Game Park (Etosha) as a reward for their hard work and commitment to the program. They had lots of fun and it was their first time to see animals eye to eye. Not even a field trip stopped them from playing tennis --they had mini bats and balls, and not wasting any time, used the long benches as a net to play tennis.

Magtalena, Paulina and Ndapandula after tennis practice

Presently, we are at the schools during the mornings doing evaluation mini-tennis with the grade 3 learners. Evaluation is based on listening skills, ball sense, social interaction skills and good behavior. This will give us a short list of names to pick from, and then we will review their academic performance and choose our grade 4 participants for 2006.

Individual tennis lessons are very successful --the kids are showing huge improvement. The “Search for a Star” tournament is coming up in November and the kids are very excited and training hard for this competition.

Thanks to volunteers from Australia, Lincoln, Rani, and Lisa who offered their time to help here at the site. It was great having an extra hand around, especially with evaluations in the mornings.

Shannon Taylor – Academic Program Manager

The third term of MYO has been a hive of activity. One of the highlights was a trip to Etosha National Park. Grade 5 MYO learners had a three day nonstop adventure filled with game drives, singing, camping, cooking, and swimming in the northern part of Namibia. The kids got an up-close look at the animals at the Namutoni watering hole, saw hundreds of Springbok, lions in action, and the many reptiles of Namibia at the Omakuti Reptile Park. And of course, what MYO adventure would be complete without tennis? In their free time the kids found any space available to volley a few tennis balls.

The Grade 5 learners really rose to the occasion and showed us all how well they handle responsibility and work as a team. The kids came away from this trip with many lasting memories, a wealth of knowledge about the wildlife and environment in Namibia, and quite exhausted.

During this term of MYO we were joined by three volunteers, Lisa Chee, Lincoln DeKalb, and Rani Fisher from Sydney, Australia. With their help we are expanding the educational opportunities for the students in our program, and Lincoln DeKalb set up our MYO computer lab. We will begin computer classes next term for the grade 6 learners. The kids at MYO were very excited to have Lisa Chee as a new addition to the classroom. Lisa taught art classes for three weeks to both the Grade 4 and 5 learners. We learned the basics of painting and mixing colors and various texturing techniques as well as created our personalized art projects. This was a welcome addition to our normal academic activities, and Lisa left behind many great art supplies to be used later on in the classroom. Thank you to Lisa, Lincoln, and Rani!

We are now heading into the home stretch of the year. Our focus for the rest of this term will be on preparing for the cluster exams and continuing work on our reading and writing skills. We will round out the year with an MYO prize giving ceremony for the parents and learners to come together and review the progress and achievements of their children for the year. As always thank you for your support!

Christa shows off her art work

Paulina shows off her art work

News

Website - Our just gets better and better. I continually get praise from other NGO’s (non-government organizations) and supporters about our site. When Frank and I first discussed MYO we agreed that we wanted a site that reflected our grass-roots mentality and intense focus on efficiency. Frank has hit the mark!

We just completed our 2nd major upgrade to the site and I want to thank Frank and Lincoln for their efforts. Frank works a very intense technical job during the day and at night goes home to 3 kids (2 under 3 years) and hopefully, an understanding wife. He then reads through my 4 or 5 new requests and proceeds to build the pages to accommodate my demands. Again, many thanks to Frank and others for making our website the best.

We have more upgrades coming in 2006 and we hope you continue to visit our site as often as possible to stay informed about the great things happening at MYO.

Transportation - We have purchased our first combi (van). Many NGO’s first buy a combi and a Land Cruiser and then start figuring out what type of business they want to be in. We have suffered along without transport for a full 2 years. Many of our kids were walking as far as 7km each way to get to our facilities, so we needed a safe and sustainable solution. The kids thank-you for your donations which allowed us to make this purchase. Also, thanks to Clifford and Jasmine Lyners, who loaned me their personal car for the 10 weeks I was here so I didn’t have to hire transport.

Alternate Donation Options - Please consider donating Airline Award miles as a great way to support MYO. We need to cover the cost of our American volunteers’ round-trip airfare from the US to Namibia. By donating airline award miles to cover this cost, you can help us save on this cost in next year’s budget.

MYO Permanent Home – We have taken a step closer to a permanent facility as we narrow our options. We have identified our top 2 locations for development and are now in the process of qualifying the sites to make a final decision. We are simultaneously pursuing an existing facility as well as a new construction option. Both locations have potential advantages and disadvantages. We have a target date of February 2006 to fully review both options and implement our fund raising campaign to complete development of our new home. Our basic timeline is to identify the new location by February, campaign through all of 2006, re-model or build in 2007 and move in by January of 2008.

Global Support for MYO – We are slowly expanding our reach. With the recent visit from our Australian volunteers and supporters, we are optimistic that we will soon see an influx of support from our friends “down under”. Lisa, Lincoln and Rani had a smashing good time getting to know the kids and lending a hand. It was not a traditional vacation, as they spent most of their time on various projects, ranging from cash flow analysis and spreadsheet development, to teaching art classes, to photography and website design. They left MYO with a greater understanding of why we do what we do and left with at least 45 new friends to think about when they get back home.

We hope to get Germany and Canadian teams in place in 2006.