March 2017

IN THIS ISSUE: ………………………..

Born an original 1

Quote for Life 1

News from the

Director's desk 2

Partnering to make a

social impact 4

Training Dept. 6

Straight from

Malashi 8

The role of a LifeLine

Volunteer 10

Portrait of a

volunteer 11

………………………..

The words of the tongue should have three gatekeepers:

Is it true? Is it kind? Is it necessary? Arabian Proverb

News from the Directors Desk - March 2017

Time flies when you are having fun. Welcome to March 2017.

Thank you to the following Volunteers for their willingness to roll up their sleeves and take on the

following challenges and tasks:

LIFELINE PLANNING COMMITTEE 2017

Director Sonya Rayne

Treasurer André Vest

Board member Mike Lukhozi

2 Staff members Deryn Logie & Lucky Malashi

2 Volunteers Herna Feldmann & Debbie Lee Wilkinson

FUNCTIONS AND FUNDRAISING FOR 2017

EVENT

DATE

PROBATIONERS 2016 -2017

THE BARNYARD

APRIL / MAY

ALL VOLUNTEERS, COUNSELLORS, PROBATIONERS, FAMILY AND FRIENDS OF LIFELINE

CHRISTMAS IN JULY

JULY

ALL VOLUNTEERS, COUNSELLORS, PROBATIONERS, FAMILY AND FRIENDS OF LIFELINE

LIFELINE'S ANNUAL GOLF DAY

30 AUGUST 2017

PROBATIONERS 2017

GALA DINNER AND YEAR END FUNCTION NOVEMBER

Please pick a function: we are looking for team leaders to co-ordinate and teams to help promote the

event and get everyone involved. Please let me know where you can help.

STATISTICS FOR JANUARY 2017

Trauma, Crime and Violence

Accidents, Assault, Abuse – Adult, Abuse – Child, Cyber Crime, Domestic Violence, Emotional Abuse (outside the Home), Hi-jacking, Murder, Rape, Robbery, Sexual Harassment, Theft, Xenophobia.

Addiction Alcohol, Drugs, Gambling, Sex / Pornography / Social Networking.

Mental Health Anger, Bereavement, Depression, Mental Disorders, Eating disorders, Self-Injuring Behaviour, Stress / Anxiety, Suicide

Physical Health HIV & AIDS, Disability, Sexual Problems, Other illness (e.g. diabetes, stroke, heart attack etc.

General Abortion, Bullying / Cyber, Destitute, Education, Financial/debt, Legal, Loneliness, Pregnancy, Refugee issues, Retirement, Retrenchment, Sexual Orientation, Spiritual, Un-employment.

Relationships Adolescent, Family, Marriage, Child, Divorce, Elderly, Intimate, Parenting, Social.

Other Enquiries / Information, Hoax, Regular Caller, Silent / Ring off, Sex Caller

VOLUNTEER COUNSELLORS AND PROBATIONERS PLEDGES

Please remember that the minimum monthly pledge is R35.00 per person (you can contribute more).

This is for the running expenses, tea, coffee, milk, sugar, cleaning material and toilet paper and toilet

spray.

Thank you for those who are already contributing. Payments can either be done

by EFT or dropped into the pledge box in the Telephone Crisis room. Receipts

will be made out for those placed in the pledge box. Please collect your receipts

so you know the money has been received.

Sonya Rayne Director

Trauma Crime and Violence

20

Addiction 2

Mental Health 49

Physical Health

2

General 8

Relationships 42

Other 0

2

49

2

8

42

0

LifeLine January 2017 (123 Clients)

LETTER FROM THE CHAIR - PARTNERING TO MAKE A SOCIAL IMPACT

I often read or hear in the news about a deeply traumatized and dislocated South Africa. During the last month I partnered with my daughter on her community health project with an intent to better understand the MOOT Area in which our Queenswood Community

Centre is based.

Queenswood is a small suburb within the MOOT Area which caters for the young and the old. It has easy access to Pretoria University and is not far from the city centre. There are four schools: Loreto, Clapham, Queenswood Laerskool and Eduplex, as well as the Queenswood Creche. The population as per the last official census is 6515 people made up as follows: 2361 households with 55% female and 45% male. Racial groupings - 74% white, 18% black african, 2% coloured and 2% indian. The predominant language spoken is Afrikaans followed by English and Setwana.

During some of the interviews with the various service providers in the MOOT Area, opportunities emerged to leverage for long term growth. There was a strong desire to work together. People want to make a difference in other peoples' lives. This

community was more than just the one surburb of Queenswood.

CBC, close to Weavind Park, has a new school principal who would like to grow the number of learners at his school. To do this he would need to understand this area better. He offered up the school facilities for projects that could help promote community sustainability. LifeLine were presented with an opportunity to offer lay counselling to the learners 16 years and older that did not want to see the school

psychologist but just wanted to talk to someone.

Loreto in Queenswood had just lost their social outreach project with the Mercy Sisters in a dump site and were in the process of looking for a new project. Doulos, who we later interveiwed, could provide such an opportunity. Loreto had embarked on a new teaching system which was not easy for the older teachers. The LifeLine

community centre in Queenswood receives referrals from the school counsellor.

The Animal hospital in Waverley took, and asked that we regularly replenish, LifeLine phamplets and business cards. This was helpful for them in dealing with traumatised pet owners. They made a good referral to us for Doulos, which was 2 houses away

from them.

Doulos in Waverley is run by an inspirational retired man, Han Janse van Rensberg. He turns over R33 million per annum. He caters for more than 20000 people, has 94 squatter camps, 26 old age homes, 12 childrens homes, a drug squad, 2300 people with disabilities, 3 centres to cater for autism and 5 creches. He believes in working on children to break the cycle of poverty in a family. He was surprised to find an

organisation that provides free counselling services. Watch this space!

Moot hospital has their own counselling service for their staff but understand that their patients have a dire need to talk to someone. I have been invited back to talk to their unit managers on 10th March about how they can connect their patients to our

services.

The dentist in Kilner Park indicated that the MOOT Area has been getting poorer over the years and that there is a dire need to create a catelogue of community services that will help people save money in the long run. He asked that LifeLine regularly replenish

their phamplets and business cards left in his waiting room.

I have learnt that by partnering with the broad range of services available within the MOOT Area, LifeLine Pretoria could contribute towards alleviating some of the social challenges, epecially where the need is greatest.

Growing through learning,

Sheila.

IN THE END THERE DOESN'T HAVE TO BE

ANYONE WHO UNDERSTANDS YOU.

THERE JUST HAS TO BE SOMEONE

WHO WANTS TO.

Robert Brault

Training Department Hallo LifeLine Family

What an awesomely busy past two months we have had considering that the year has just started. We started the year by presenting the Saturday Counselling Skills Course for the Course participants of the October 2016 Personal Growth Course and then, immediately after the completion of the Saturday Counselling Skills Course, we started with our Personal Growth Course.

Training Report - Saturday Counselling Skills Courses – January 2017

As mentioned in my introduction, the Saturday Counselling Skills Course which started on the 7th of January 2017 and ran until the 11th of February 2017, was most successful although we did not have a lot of participants. Six new volunteers from the January 2017 Counselling Skills Course also joined this course.

The selection interviews were conducted over a period of two days, on the 17th and 18th of February 2017. There were six candidates and all were selected as our new volunteer counsellors. They attended their Orientation session on the 25th of February 2017. This was presented by our director, Sonya Rayne, as I was not available on the above mentioned date.

I want to welcome and congratulate our six new volunteer counsellors to the LifeLine Family. They have started with their probation already, and I have seen some of them already coming in to do telephone duties.

Before I conclude this part of my article on training, I want to thank the facilitators of the January Counselling Skills Course for making this course such a success and providing good training to our course participants. Thank you for availing yourselves to facilitate and train, I greatly appreciate all your efforts and contributions.

Thank you as well to all the volunteers who assisted with the selection interviews by being part of the panel. I must thank you for making the selection interviews so successful.

Personal Growth Course – February / March 2017

We have started with our first Personal Growth Course for 2017. We are only presenting the weekday morning course and the Saturday course. There were not enough participants for the evening course so it was cancelled.

Thus far the courses are half-way through and all seems to be going well.

The training commenced as follows:

Weekday Morning Personal Growth Course – 14 February till 14 March 2017 – 21

course participants

Saturday Personal Growth Course – 18 February 2017 till 18 March 2017 – 23

course participants

Thank you to all the volunteers who are facilitating at the current Personal Growth Courses. I appreciate it that you have availed yourselves to make the course possible. Many, many thanks.

Ongoing Training

We had our Ongoing Training session based on Marriage / Relationship Counselling on the 22nd of February 2017. The information that was presented at this training was relevant to how we conduct our marriage and relationship counselling sessions. Our speaker / trainer, Carin Human, focused her presentation on sessions such as:

Common reasons for marital counselling

Rules for couples' counselling

Ideas for the counsellor

Structure of marital counselling sessions

Carin Human is a Counselling Psychologist with her own practice, which is not far from our LifeLine Pretoria Centre. She was a LifeLine volunteer counsellor as well from 2005 till 2007.

This first Ongoing Training session of the year was well attended by the volunteers and probationers, and also we had other non LifeLine members who attended such as members of the Sinoville Crisis Centre.

Conclusion

I want to conclude with a quote that has been on my desk for some time. I like to read and ponder on it daily. I hope that you will also find it inspirational: “Sometimes when I consider what tremendous consequences come from the little things………., I am tempted to think that there are no little things” by Bruce Barton.

Stay blessed,

Till next time, Agnes Semono

Training Diary

22nd March 2017 – Gender Based Violence

Straight from Malashi

Hi there LifeLine family, It is a pleasure to get yet another opportunity to write to you. If my memory serves me well, during February we were facing a dry spell in the country with regards to rain. And, because of that, we had escalating maize prices which basically meant that the majority of people who eat pap every day could hardly afford it. I mean pap is the primary and simple food in the black communities. If you can’t afford it, you starve, as you can’t afford the likes of rice etc, simple as that. The fact of the matter is that the poor are getting poorer. I should think that this is the reason most people in the communities see some problems as small matters. They would rather put it aside and continue to hustle to put food on the table. Whilst doing the Traumatic Incident Reduction workshop, I learnt that repression is what keeps most people “sane” and “in control”. Most of us would rather ignore the problem than confront it until, when we can’t avoid it anymore, it becomes a cry for help. In his book, Man’s Search for Meaning, Victor Frankl says; there is no need to be ashamed of tears, for tears bear witness that a man has the greatest of courage, the courage to suffer. To add on to that, I think you suffer because you had the courage to confront your fears and probably discovered the shocking or sad reality. You should not judge unless you ask yourself in absolute honesty whether, in a similar situation, you might not have done the same. Remember, an abnormal reaction to

an abnormal situation is a normal behaviour. I had a meeting at Mams FM with regards to marketing our services. This is one of the Radio Stations that we have a good relationship with. We will continue to do talks on request. I will be doing another talk at Ikwekwezi FM on the 3rd of March. I have also been trying to get hold of the other Radio stations, particularly the ones that we have worked with before, in order to rekindle our relationships. It hasn’t been easy to get all of them since I lost contact and some of those people that I have worked with have since moved on. Still, on marketing, Dineo Mahlokwane, Tebogo Nkwana and I did the exhibitions at the Rosebank College, Sunnyside campus on the 23rd of February. We were accommodated at the canteen where most of their students spend their free time, eating, relaxing and playing a game of snooker. The students did not come to the table but we could see some of them taking information. I think they stayed away due to the stigma which goes along with peer pressure, not wanting to be seen talking to counsellors as it could be a sign of having problems. I have also had the opportunity to do some counselling sessions and it felt good to have made a difference in people’s lives. I also went to Kriel in Mpumalanga with Sonya, Alex and Roxanne Zwart to do trauma debriefing for a group of KFC employees. It is true that sorrow shrinks when someone is listening. We recently witnessed the anti-foreigners' march in Mamelodi of Friday 24th of February. Where is the love? Isn’t February supposed to be the month of love? We were assured it was going to be a peaceful march, but there were burning tyres on some of the roads. The atmosphere was tense. I have friends from other African countries, especially Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Nigeria and, speaking to them, I could sense fear coming from them, it was so sad. They were scared

and not sure what to expect. Talking of anticipated traumas, one can suffer emotionally from that.

I am happy that we are finally having rain. I mean we had water restrictions in some parts of the country at some point, whilst other areas were running completely dry. We are still experiencing heavy rains, which unfortunately are continuing to cause havoc in some areas. I really feel for those who are now homeless because of these heavy rains. I would like to urge everybody who is driving or travelling to exercise maximum caution because the roads are severely damaged. I have seen some potholes that are big enough to plant a big tree. A community gathered together due to lack of water, and then decided that they were going to the mountain to pray for rain. There was a little boy who was among the group who had an umbrella. Upon being asked why he was carrying an umbrella, his response was, "we are going to pray for rain, aren’t we? So it’s going to rain".

The moral of the story is; no matter how hard your situation is, Faith it, until you make it – Peace unto You.

THE ROLE OF A LIFELINE VOLUNTEER

The role of a LifeLine Volunteer is often misunderstood. Of course, Counsellors

are our life blood and counselling is our main function, but not all of us are cut

out to take on this role and there are SO many other things that we can do e.g.

take some of the burden off the staff by helping with admin etc, helping with

fundraising (see the Director's article on page 3 of this Newsletter) or even, if

you have a knowledge of Pastel software, offering to help the Treasurer.

One of our LifeLiners who takes this unusual type of task seriously is Rev. Tony

Tweehuijsen – the interview that I held with him recently follows this note. You

might have seen him at the recent New Beginnings function where he was

providing the background music and taking the photos. He has also been involved

in the past at the LifeLine Pretoria Watermeyer Centre with manual tasks such

as moving the security gate in front of the offices and connecting up the

electrical cables as well as doing other maintenance jobs when Reception was

moved to its present position.

Although he does not counsel for LifeLine, he is involved with counselling on a

daily basis at the Christ the King parish in Queenswood where the LifeLine

Queenswood Community Centre is also

situated, as well as doing all his other parish

duties such as preaching, visiting the sick,

holding Bereavement Courses, training other

Deacons and Ministers for the Pretoria

Catholic diocese, doing funerals, baptisms etc

etc and he still always has time to answer the

LifeLine Queenswood doorbell and call out

the counsellor on duty when "walk-in" clients

arrive at the door.

Flick, Lucky and Tony having a light – hearted moment during the moving of the Reception area at the Watermeyer Centre

PORTRAIT OF A VOLUNTEER TONY TWEEHUIJSEN

I was asked “How did you get involved with LifeLine?”. Well, what was I going to

do with my life when I suddenly found myself put on early retirement because

technology had moved on to this new thing called ‘electronics’. I was not really old

enough to retire but too old to be employed again. My late wife and I had been

involved with Marriage Encounter where we helped married couples improve their

marriages. LifeLine also helps people to overcome problems and obstacles in their

lives so perhaps I could do something there, why not!

This all happened some thirteen or so years ago when I attended my first “Personal

Growth” course. I not only enjoyed the course but I grew from the experience. I

suppose that’s why it’s called “Personal Growth”. Anyway I intended going on to do

the “Counselling” course soon after but somehow I was not advised when the course

was to take place and I missed out. I then did a course on “Starting my own

business” and started my “Tony the Handyman” business. I received a contract doing

handyman type work at a retirement centre and there I was able to “listen” to the

elderly and offer support and understanding and a little bit of love.

I always felt a little disappointed that I did not get to do the counselling course, so

when the opportunity presented itself with a LifeLine course being offered at my own

parish in 2013, I jumped in boots and all, learning and growing in confidence and

skills. After all what a blessing it is to be able to help and guide others from our own

blessings and goodness in our lives.

Going back in my life a bit, while I was fixing all sorts of house things like toilets,

stoves, cupboards and so forth I was asked to consider a calling to the Ministry as a

Deacon (assistant to a parish priest) and I started to study part time. After five years

of studying, I was ordained to the Deaconate which has put me in an even better

position to use what I have learnt from life, Marriage Encounter and LifeLine i.e. to

assist and guide others to a better life. When I look back to my life I can see that the

finger, if not the hand, of God was guiding and preparing me to this “mission”.

I still think my greatest gift I have received is to be open to be hugged by so many

people. Thank you, let us continue to help as many as we can of the unhappy people

in this world.

God bless.

Tony Tweehuijsen.