September 3, 2009, 3:24 pm

Word from Africa continues and now, we have some photos that we can share with you.

As a reminder, this is a group of 10 young women from Soweto who are utilizing Chill & Spill as supportive curriculum to the group’s theme of gender equity, girls’ empowerment, and encouragement of leadership skills through creativity.

The leader, Stacey, recently visited Letsema Care Centre, a place that cares for 100 orphans.  She was inundated with requests by more young girls asking if they could join her group. So, she is continuing the group process with as many orphan girls as she can before she runs out of Chill & Spill books.

She writes, “Two girls have already written on every page in their Chill & Spill journal and stuck photos of their moms that had passed away. The writing revealed their process of mourning and coming to terms with their loss.”

Donations are needed to help us send more Chill & Spill books to her so she can continue this important work with girls affected by overwhelming poverty, child-headed households resulting from the HIV/Aids pandemic, crime, and teen pregnancy. Along with the books, we also want to include a care package of art supplies that the orphans can use, as they don’t even have ballpoint pens(!).

$150 will sponsor a package for five orphans (this includes postage to South Africa, which is quite costly). Donate today and write “South African Orphans” in the memo.

, 2:48 pm

We recently received a request this morning from a mental health counselor at a local shelter for a donation of Chill & Spill books for Hispanic teens. With your help, we can send her enough books to help 50 boys.

“I work with boys ages 12-17 who have been detained by immigration and have had many struggles throughout their lives. I have been using Chill & Spill with them and have been translating it on my own into Spanish since our boys are Spanish speaking and we absolutely love it.

“Would it be at all possible to get some books donated to our program? It would be amazing for them to actually get their own book since – as of now – what I’ve been doing is typing up the activities and gluing them into their composition notebook.”

If you would like to help out, please donate today and put “C&S for Hispanic Teens” in the memo. We would need to raise $1,000 to help them. Thank you!