I am grateful

I am truly one of the worst bloggers around. It would probably be better to call this a logbook or kick it old school by calling it a diary. It has been almost 2 months since the last post and to be honest, its just not my thing to keep on trying to update a blogger site. But for marketing purposes it is a good thing and it gives you guys a little insight on what I personally experience while going through this incredible journey. As expected our trip to India was unbelieveable. After 2 days in Mumbai we finally took a bus out to Goa. The bus trip took us 4 hours just to get out of Mumbai, for the City was so cramped and literally full of garbage!For decades there has been no proper sanitary or garbage services. I am so much more aware even for the things we do not even realise is an absolute privilege to have and it has made me grateful. I am grateful to not have to sleep like thousands of kids in India, amongst the stench of endless rubbish and dead rats that packs of crows feed off! I am grateful for having both of my legs and not having to wake up everyday of my life and drag myself through the dirty streets of India by using only my arms and hands. I am grateful for having a rooftop over my head and not having to sleep with fifty other individuals under garbage filled bridges infested with cockroaches and rats. I am grateful for having clean water running from a tap and not having to bath in a polluted river with a dead dog floating next to me. I am grateful to realise on how lucky I am to simply stand up everyday with no deformity that is hampering my walking ability. I am grateful.

Leaving to Greece and India !!!

The journey has just been amazing for me. Sometimes I wish I could give people just a little of what I get to experience almost every day of my life. We are working hard to set up our venue in Khayelitsha and soon we will launch our crowd funding campaign to boost our online presence globally and also raise enough funds to really put imilli on the map! As murphy's law would have it, everything happens all at the same time. My family, best friend and I have been planning this trip to Greece for almost a year now. My brother is getting married to a Greek American girl who has family in Greece. Both families came to the agreement that it would be the most logical choice to rather have the wedding in Greece. A neutral destination rather than having a wedding in America or South Africa. India came into play round the time I broke up with my girlfriend. I needed to go to a wedding in Greece and had no plus 1. My friend Jo Jo had a trip planned to India and so we decided to combine the two trips. It is a win win really because now I have a date for the wedding. He might be a gay dude but he is my best mate so we can only end up having the best vacation ever. We originally planned the trip for 7 weeks but because of imilli suddenly taking off, I have had to cut my trip down to 3 weeks. As things have been happening even 3 weeks is a push and I have no idea how I am actually gona try and "switch off" while I am on holiday because there is so much happening. I do think though that it is a journey God has planned for me. I do not have to draw any more inspiration that I already poses but I think India is a journey that is going to change my life! It can only be of benefit to imilli at the end of the day. Can not wait to get back and start the life that God intended for me!

We Won!

A lady bought hot chocolate from us the other day and sent me this link via email. It was a competition hosted by Elizabeth Arden called "make a visible difference" campaign. Long story short - we won!!! R40 000 for Imilli! this is incredible for our charity. There are so many things that we have had planned for the year, now it can be done in a matter of months. Look out for our "car wash for change" initiative starting up in October. Our new rewards programme "Change S.A fund" is also currently being set up and will be launched in October as well. We are in talks with a few cooperates about funding and sponsoring and with the money that we have won our venue in Khayelitsha should be fully operational by the start of 2015!

Back from Johannesburg ice hockey tournament

It was quite an adventure for the boys and I. The boys have never been to Johannesburg or flown in a plane and by the sounds the team was making as we took off, I came to realise not many of the 48 Western Province team members have flown either. It was my first time in Johannesburg as well and like most have said, it is not the prettiest place but I was really impressed with the amount of friendly people we got to meet. The entire team and parents shared rooms at the same guest house and it was like being back in boarding school. My first night I had to share a room with six of the under 14 lads. I probably got about 2 hours sleep much more I can say than the boys got. All of them were so excited just to be travelling and then bunking with their friends that they kept each other up all night, playing pranks and just doing what boys do best, which is getting up to mischief. We had to be up at 04:30am everything morning to either be there for support or for playing a match. We started off really well but as the games progressed I came to the realisation that we need to create more practice time for our teams .All the boys played well and Gamad scored a goal for his team in one game. It made me so proud but it also made me think that we will have to find a solution to raise the standard of our game. Our ice time is so valuable and currently we only get to practice once every Sunday! This is simply not good enough. There are other times scheduled for ice hockey players but it is either really early or really late in the week day. Parents and guardians can not simply be there at 6am or 10pm at night! We will have to find another place or try and change the ice time schedules. We ended up coming home with silver in the bag but I am confident once training starts intensifying we will return with gold instead!

Our time is now!

Wow what in incredible 2 weeks this has been! Last Wednesday we kicked off with our first fundraising effort's and man has it been an incredible ride in only seven days! We started off by selling soup to motorists at like 6:30am in the mornings had a successful day. But we realised soon enough that people were not so into soup so early in the morning and changed our product to Hot chocolate. We soon came to realise as well that the accumulating funds part was not the main thing but making people aware of what we do was more important! Since then we are in talks with getting live radio time on smile radio. A company has offered us free paint, a lady is currently negotiating with with her company and her husbands to get donations of things they don't need and the same lady got us to enter a competition where we are able to win up to R105 000! This is all in 7 days! Other unbelievable news is that on the same day that we started our Soup sales, 2 of our 3 ice hockey boys made the Western Province team! We will be traveling to Johannesburg in the beginning of July for a tournament. I am super proud of my lads, I knew they would adapt to ice very quickly but did not think that it would go this quick. I have been training with them in the early mornings. Three times a week I have been meeting them at 6am to go for a jog and some boot camp training. The boys are still unfit but they will be ready for the tournament. We will be selling hot chocolate again from Tuesday morning, 27th of May. You can find us by the traffic intersection on the corner of Roeland and Tennant Street!

Western Province Tryouts!

The boys have done exceptionally well this year. It has been just over a year now when we met in the streets of the Bo-Kaap. Their skill at ice hockey has improved tremendously, so much that they are ready for Western province try - outs. Try- outs will take place in the next couple of weeks on Sunday the 4th of May and Sunday the 11th of May. if the lads do well and succeed they will be invited to play in Johannesburg on the 27th June 2014.

Non-Profit Status Approved

After almost a year of waiting we have finally received our certificate. This certificate verifies that we are registered as a Non-profit organisation. For more information please see our legal page.

The Venue

We have finally secured a venue in the heart of Khayelitsha. I need to thank Mandla and his team for their generosity. They have given us use of the venue for no charge .The Venue is big enough for us to host all our sport activities and they have provided a room where we will be able to set up, up to 15 computers. We are currently just waiting for our Non-profit status to be approved before approaching co-operate companies for funding!