Our poll on Facebook for the Monthly Photo Competition of September just finished and our winner is fixed. It is a picture taken by our Marketing Manager Charmaine on our World Peace Day event last Tuesday. Congratulations for this wonderful shot. But the problem is that she wasn´t the one who uploaded the picture. It was our Office Apprentice Sma, so she is the legitimate winner of September and not Charmaine! Really sad for our staff member from Australia, but the rules say that it is important who uploads the picture and that definitely was Sma (the sly fox) true to the motto: “First come, first served!” We are looking forward to our next Monthly Photo Competition and I hope that you will support us voting for your favourite picture in the end of October again.

Yesterday the whole world was celebrating the International Day of Peace. Reason enough for us to link this event with one of our World Cup tournaments which is the final event after our 8-hours Life Skills Sessions. Also on board was the organization Accord which supported us during the whole day with volunteering and prizes.

After the group stage we served the hungry kids of Clarence Primary School their food. While they were eating and making a break we had a few speeches which gave the kids some background information about the International Day of Peace. As a sign of worldwide peace two of our ten year old participants lighted a candle at 12 o´clock what was followed by a minute of silence to remember the places and people in the world which are involved with wars.

Also from the WhizzKids office our Monitoring and Evaluation Officer Tom was introducing the participants and visitors into our programme and explained why we run tournaments like that and what the Life Skills Session is about. The next speaker was our special guest Roger Palmgren who is the sports director of the PSL football team Amazulu FC which is based in Durban. The kids were really impressed by the speech from Roger who had to write plenty of autographs after the tournament.

All in all the whole tournament was very successful and the kids had a lot of fun. Slovakia was the team which played the best football during the whole day what is the reason why they won the title. Their opponents in the final were the kids from the Netherlands who deserved the fair play trophy because of their considerate and fair play.

Afterwards we can say that it was a good idea to link our usual World Cup Tournament to the World Peace Day and to work together with an other organization. I not only want to say thank you to Accord, but also to Eagle Stationeres, Roger Palmgren, Clarence Primary School and especially the AIDS Foundation, because all of them made this event happen.

Apart from our vision and mission one of our further goals is to spread the word of WhizzKids United all over the world finding new partners and sponsorships which are necessary to extend our programme. As we are not an ′′old school′′ organization and one of our core values is creativity, we should always be up to date what is why we´ve created different profiles on various social networking websites.

We have been focusing on Facebook and Twitter and provide daily news, pictures and videos about our work in townships, the program itself, football and a lot of more. Both networks are definitely the most popular social media platforms and the worldwide range is enormous.

For example Facebook has more than 500 million users followed by Twitter with nearly 40 million. So it looks like that most of the terrestrials are addicted to social media websites and admittedly I am one of these nerds as well.

But especially for us as a non-profit-organisation using these opportunities for free it is a good chance to get some of the cyberjunkies to follow WhizzKids. If you are one of those feel free to join us on Facebook or Twitter, write comment and upload pictures or whatever you want to do.

Just click the following links: Facebook, Twitter! We are looking forward to hearing from you.

As I am from Germany it is a little bit weird for me to say that spring is here, because it is September and I am used to the cold rainy and stormy weather which we should have right now in my home country.

Of course I rather enjoy Durban´s sunshine than preparing for the cold days of the winter in Europe. But today for me and some pupils it was definitely too hot in Durban so we had to cancel our Life Skills Training with one of our schools in Greyville. It would have been too exhausting for the kids playing football on a pitch where it is hardly possible to find a shady spot. So we had to place it on hold to the next week.

Apart from that there´s still plenty to do at our office and we are looking forward to some special events we have been planning. On Saturday for example you can visit some of our staff members at the Essenwood Market where they present the WhizzKids United programme. In addition all of our visitors will have the chance to win one of our amazing prizes (i. e. Safari at Hluwehluwe,…) whilst entering our Spot The Ball Competition.

Furthermore we are organising a World Cup Tournament for one of our schools which hopefully will finish the last part of the Life Skills Session during this week, but it depends on how warm it will be the following days. For me it will definitely be my last tournament before going back to Germany after six months. But I´ll enjoy every minute of the South African spring and of course my work with WhizzKids United!

During the past weekend there was the SMME Fair in Durban, a huge exhibition with almost 500 stands where different companies from Durban presented their products, agency or what else they provide. Of course WhizzKids United set up a stand as well because for us it was the chance to spread the name of our programme, find new sponsorships and to raise some funds.

All in all the exhibition was a big success for us especially our “Spot the Ball Competition”. As a visitor you had to find a ball in a picture where we had deleted the ball in advance. To enter the competition every potential participant had to pay R10 which is really minimal, because we were offering prizes like a Safari trip to Hluhluwe for two persons for two nights. In total we provided prizes to the value of R 20,000.

On the one hand the three days at the SMME Fair were very exhausting for each of our staff members especially for Charmaine and Nancy who were working for the whole weekend. But on the other hand most of our staff including the trainers helped out what shows that there´s a big enthusiasm within our organization.

For Charmaine and Nancy it was their first event since they′ve started working with WhizzKids and afterwards we can say that both did a great job in the past two weeks.

The current week has been very busy for the whole WhizzKids team, because at the following weekend we are going to present our programme at the SMME Fair in Durban from 3rd till 5th September. Especially our new Marketing team consisting of Charmaine and Nancy has still plenty to do getting everything done right in time for the fair at the Durban Exhibition Centre.

Our aim for the exhibition is not only to spread the word of WhizzKids through introducing the visitors to the way we work and find new partners, but also we want to raise funds for upcoming activities and to extend our programme in other countries.

In terms of fundraising we′ve created a game called ′Spot the Ball Competition′. In a football related picture we′ve removed the ball so that you have to guess where it is. If you mark your cross at the right position a lot of amazing prizes like a trip to the Hluhluwe Nationalpark will be waiting for you. You have also the chance to win some other attractive prizes and 10 Rand as competition entrance fee are not that much.

We would like you to come to the SMME Fair at the weekend and visit our stand (# 278) at the Durban Exhibition Centre. From Friday to Sunday we′ll be there from 8.00 am until 5 pm. We are looking forward to seeing you at our WhizzKids United stand.