Dr John Howe, CEO of Project HOPE, visits Munsieville

Dr John Howe, CEO and President of Project HOPE US, visited Munsieville recently. Here is his report from his trip, where he saw the difference that Project HOPE UK's Thoughtful Path programme is already making to the lives of the children there.

"...we shall be as a city upon a hill -- the eyes of the people are upon us."

President-elect John F. Kennedy, January 8, 1961

I was reminded of these words, as we drove west from Johannesburg. My destination of Munsieville, a city of 39,000, sits high on a hill, overlooking the plains of the Rand District. The health of Munsieville is at risk both economically and medically. The nearby gold mines have shut down, resulting in 70% unemployment. 10,000 people live in corrugated tin shacks. Two clinics and two ambulances serve the entire city, without a hospital.

Yet as I visited with community elders I was most impressed with their sense of optimism. This was partly due to a sense of hope created by “The Thoughtful Path” programme, designed and carried out to "give orphans and vulnerable children the opportunity to develop into healthy, productive adults."

The project's early success is related to finding solutions from within the community to needs in early childhood development, after school care, youth support and development, community strengthening, child and youth sports programmes, child rights and protections, as well as partnership capacity building.

Betty Nkoana is the present Project Manager for the "Thoughtful Path" in Munsieville. As we visited two Early Childhood Development Centers (EDCC), one of the clinics and the homes of members of the community, the love the members have for her was clearly evident.

In the future, leadership will be passed to a younger generation, but the city will be well served, as seen in visits with two of its outstanding young people. Ivy started a successful for-profit EDCC from the bottom up, and Bucs began as a journalist intern but is now the city's lead print and electronic writer.

There are plans to create a sports centre and a community resource centre, all consistent with the goal of giving young people the "opportunity to develop into healthy, productive adults."

I left Munsieville with a new image of "a city upon a hill," a modern-day version of what President-elect Kennedy had in mind as he spoke in Boston in 1961.

See The Thoughtful Path Web site for more information on how you can get involved in supporting this innovative programme.