Volunteer Work in Cape Town

Soup Kitchen

Once a week, we help out a lovely lady called Mary distributing soup and bread to the residents of the slum in Capricorn. The food for the soup kitchen is provided by Dreams to Reality, the NGO we paid to find our volunteer placement with children in Cape Town.

Soup Kitchen in Capricorn

Mary runs a small crèche, located on the back of her house in Capricorn. She has some volunteers helping her on a daily basis through DTR. She also volunteers to cook these huge pots of soup for her less fortunate neighbors, who are more than happy to queue up for a second or third cup of her delicious soup. My sister and I felt very happy to know that the money we paid to this organization is being spent in such a nice way, helping people in need.

Dine, Mary and Clau

Mother’s Unite

My sister and I found Mother’s Unite through our friend Nick, whom lives in Cape Town. This organization, located in Seawinds, next to the Lavender Hill township (another slum in Cape Town), started with one mother, who took disadvantaged children to her own house to give them a meal after school.

Mother's Unite

This year, Mother’s Unite will celebrate its 5^th year, catering for about 120 children and teenagers between 3 and 16 years old. There are seven mothers, who volunteer their time to help out the disadvantaged children in their community. These proud mothers do various tasks including cooking, teaching, helping out in the vegetable garden, assisting people with HIV etc.

Meal time, happy time!

After some negotiation with the council they finally got a block of land, where they could place their containers, which were also donated to them. Now, they have a playground for the young children and plenty of space for the children to enjoy Mac’s delicious meals. The mothers are very nice and also invited us to join them for lunch, which we happily accepted! Mother’s Unite was the first place we got to try local South African food, which was a big treat to us!

Lunch with Volunteer Mothers

The children come to Mother’s Unite after school, instead of staying on the street and getting into trouble. Here I am teaching children from grades 2 and 3 with Dine’s help. This is Mother’s Mac class and she’s more than happy to get some help from volunteers with her 32 students! We are teaching the children English although a lot of them really want to learn Portuguese and everything there is to know about our culture. J Dine and I really enjoy working there with the mothers and the children. They are all great!

Volunteering teaching Grades 2 and 3



Aid Teacher Dine :-)