Michelle's last few weeks in Munsieville

The second of our reports from Munsieville features Michelle Webb, who gives us an insight into her last few weeks as a GSK PULSE volunteer with Project HOPE UK:
'Even with the Charity Fundraiser postponed, last week was a busy one. We met with the Executive Mayor of West Rand about what we are doing in Munsieville and his Green IQ plan. He is very invested in making the West Rand District more sustainable with potential for solar, more parks and cleaning up the area as it was a huge gold mining area and there are tailings everywhere. They look like mountains with snow on them. We told him about our community clean up projects and he was very interested so we are going to send him our plan. I also mentioned the potential for children to do a play that my daughter Caroline did in 3rd grade called the "Dump Monster" that was all about the environment and make it a contest for children to see which school did the best play and then they could perform throughout the district and potentially the province. It really all starts with the children - it's difficult to influence the 30-50 year olds but the children can be taught not to litter and to take care of their environment. The mayor also wanted to give each child a tree to grow and take care of and then buy that tree from them a year or two later for his Green IQ. This will teach children responsibility to take care of a tree, and also teach them about business since they would be earning money and they would have to decide if they were going to buy another tree to sell or spend the money.'
'After that meeting we had another one with the West Rand District about our community clean up scheduled for March 26th. We asked for more garbage bags, gloves and snacks and water for the children. Along with that we were also trying to get some seedlings for some vegetable gardens for some of the women would like to help out children with a soup kitchen of sorts.'
'On Friday we gave out the letters from America that my friend Gail brought over from Caroline’s school. It was fantastic. They were so excited and we split the letters up so every class got some to write back - see the video of the children singing and thanking Ishikawa again.'
'Project HOPE UK is really getting to be known and that is so exciting. We still have a Community Clean Up left the last Saturday this month, a small fundraiser on Sunday at a local lodge that sponsors a market the last Sunday of the month and invited us to be the sponsored charity. They also allowed us to showcase the children that won at the Munsieville’s Got Talent (MGT) contest. Then on Sunday night there is a Fundraiser at Silverstar Casino that was kind enough to allow our MGT winner to perform since we had to postpone our fundraiser.'
'So there is no rest for the weary or the Project HOPE UK volunteers! Neil and I feel so fortunate to have had a chance to have this experience - if you would like to get involved in The Thoughtful Path, check out our Web site for details of our volunteering scheme.'
Thanks for reading!