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Link for Life Project

Link for Life Wolgarston Team 2025
In February 2025 a team of students from Wolgarston High School in Penkridge, Staffordshire will be visiting communities in South Africa supported by Link for Life’s partner charity Hands at Work in Africa (https://handsatwork.org )

The seven students  will be accompanied by five adult leaders, led by Wolgarston Teacher, Mr Mike Leonard and Revd Richard Westwood from St Anne’s Church in Chasetown. On this occasion, the student team is all girls from years 9 -12 at Wolgarston: (Eve, Jessica, Stella, Erin, Eleanor, Isabelle and Isabelle).

 

 
The 2025 Wolgarston Link for Life Team – Students are:- Eve, Eleanor, Jessica, Erin, Stella, Isabelle and Isabelle.  Leaders are:- Mike Leonard, Tony Guest, Paula Kerr, Molly Jones and Richard Westwood

The students have been busy raising funds and preparing for their visit for several months and it is the sixth visit to Hands at Work which the school has undertaken via Link for Life Project. For the first time the team will include a member of staff, Paula Kerr from Chasetown Community School where pupils have already been busy raising funds for the children in the communities which the team will visit.  The team’s leadership is completed by experienced Link for Life team members Molly Jones and Tony Guest.  The team will be spending time with their partner community of Mafambisa which the school has been linked with for several years. Mafambisa is in South Africa’s province of Mpumalanga in the Northeast of the country.
 

In Mafambisa a small team of eight volunteer care workers feed and care for 80 orphaned and vulnerable children at a Care Point in the grounds of a local church made available to them by the church.  The team hope to encourage and support the volunteer care workers and lend a hand with preparing and cooking food as well as spend time playing with the children

 

Cooking at the Care Point in Mafambisa is hard work and takes a while

Alongside time at the Care Point the team will accompany the volunteer care workers as they visit the homes where the children live to encourage those who look after them at home.  Often the care giver at home is an older relative, e.g. a grandmother (locally affectionately called a ‘Gogo’), who may have their own struggles and needs.  In some cases, the children may live in a child headed household, with the oldest child needing to take on huge responsibility.

 

Fun and games at the Care point in Mafambisa in during the 2023 visit

Hands at Work in Africa (work in eight countries in Africa and only work in communities where there are no other charities involved.  They seek to care for the most vulnerable and challenge local communities and churches to care for those in need and speak up for those without at voice. Their remarkable work to transform communities is bringing about lasting change for vulnerable children by focusing on the three essential services: Food Security, Education and Health

Whilst in South Africa the Link for Life team will be able to reflect on the unjust systems which and community breakdown which lead to people being in such need.  When they return, they will be supported as they reintegrate into their UK lives and be encouraged to raise funds for Hands at Work and speak up for the remarkable and courageous people they will have met.

 

You can follow the 2025 Wolgarston Link for Life visit via their blog  (https://link4lifeproject.blogspot.com ) and also via X (formerly Twitter) @WolgarstonSA and @link4liferw. To find out more about Hands at Work in Africa go to (https://handsatwork.org )  

                                                                                                                 
  Richard Westwood February 2025