I met an amazing woman through Rotary. Her name is Judy Westwater; you can actually probably google her and get some information about her story as well as info about her books (she has written 2). Anyway, she is a former street kid. She was kidnapped from Britain by her father and brought to South Africa and abandoned. She now supports several projects in South Africa to help street kids. One of the projects is called Second Chance in Cape Town. The Second Chance project coordinates events with several of the shelters and ngo’s in Cape Town that work with street kids and at-risk youth. I was able to go to one of the projects with Judy, Suzy (a journalist who is traveling with Judy), and Gavin (Sea Point Rotary president). The project is the Zip Zap Circus which is a social organization that teaches circus skills to many different groups – one of them is former street kids and at-risk youth. The organization was amazing and just hanging out with these kids was incredible. The kids got there and immediately starting conditioning/stretching in a really fun-looking workout around the whole gym. By the way, this gym/circus is really a huge tent in the middle of the city specifically for this circus. I began playing with them as well, once Judy sort of encouraged me and gave me permission (in a way) to have fun and play as well. Check out the pictures above of me walking on a tight rope and jumping on the trampoline -- tons of fun and the kids really enjoyed me playing along as well. I hope to do some more work with this organization.
great story about Judy and all she's doing with the street kids, this is right up your alley in terms of service. Looks like you had a lot of fun on the trampoline
ReplyDeleteJudy Westwater is a wonderfully phenomenal woman. I have read her book "Street Kid" and I was deeply touched by it. Thank you Judy for such a wonderful heart, people like you are rare to be found.
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