Fisantekraal Centre for Development Board members, staff, volunteers and partners met on 21 August 2015 for the Annual General Meeting.
Linda Oosthuizen, Chair Person of the Board, stated in her report:
“If you wish to succeed in life, make perseverance your bosom friend, experience your wise counselor, caution your elder brother, and hope your guardian genius.†– Joseph Addison During the past year at Fisantekraal Centre for Development, it is again through relentless pursuit of excellence by all our stakeholders which enabled us to be successful. We trained 213 adults in Job Readiness, Office Basics and Bake-for-Profit combined, which is a milestone for us! What an honour to see lives and families transformed by building up our students students holistically and assisting them to obtain the needed skills, and make the necessary changes and decisions to secure long term employment. Furthermore, we are privileged to play a small part in making the lives of our many volunteers volunteers volunteers more meaningful as well. We are so thankful for the contribution of our volunteers and are humbled by their generosity. We have a host of volunteers who help with training, IT work, advice, financial support, and even making sandwiches to treat our students. Associate of support, and even making sandwiches to treat our students. One of the strengths of Fisantekraal Centre for Development, is a very dedicated set of board members. members. Each board member has a unique role to play in advancing the organisation in the community. It is not often you will find such loyalty over so many years. I want to take this opportunity to say thank you so much for all the hard work. What a journey it has been! I look forward to the one ahead. All board members are willing to serve another term. We want to recognise the hard work and dedication of our staff in managing the services we provide. In the year under discussion, we have obtained a new director, Jane Gelderman. She focuses on fundraising and overseeing the work of the centre. We are excited to have her as part of the team. Zakhe Puwana, a trainer, has resigned, but with the support of volunteers and under the inspiring leadership of Cheryl van der Merwe, we have not replaced him. A past student was appointed in a temporary learnership position to assist the students when learning to use computers. We will, however, recruit a new trainer in the near future to position us for further growth. Ann-Marie Cupido joined the team as receptionist & administrator. She is a great asset to FCD and plays a key role in us delivering a high quality service to our students and the community.
A challenge we always face, is financial sustainability. We need continuous long-term financial partnerships in the community to secure our financial needs. In the year under discussion, we have made a financial loss, which is naturally of great concern. However, we are determined to continue the development of relationships needed to address this issue. Thank you to our loyal donors who have enabled us to reach our core goals of training the unemployed. Looking to the future, we have many exciting prospects exciting prospects exciting prospects. The start of the Frail Care Frail Care Frail Care course will be very beneficial to both our students and the community in general. We also have the hope of commencing the building project building project building project very soon. It will bring us even closer to the heart of the Fisantekraal community and enable us to teach many more life-changing skills development courses – as identified by our comprehensive community analysis – to a wider range of people. Associate of Looking ahead, our dream for the year ahead is that we will continue to inspire our students continue to inspire our students continue to inspire our students to reach their full potential as we engage with them through our staff, volunteers, donors and board members. our staff, volunteers, donors and board members. Thanks, all, for playing your part to help us to achieve this dream.
Click here to download the full Annual Report 2015