Ammish Community Development

AMMISH Community Development
AMMISH (= Action, Mentoring, Mission, Impact, Society, Home-based) Community Development runs afterschool programs which offer homework help, life-skills education, fun activities and food, four times a week.
The afterschool-program has the aim to improve the children’s school performance and decrease the rate of teenage pregnancies, drug addictions, HIV infections and criminal activities of children and adolescents.
We also also aim to involve the families and that is why our caregivers assess the children’s household if we notice that there is a problem at home.
The greater vision is to build a nation wide cooperation network between schools in south African townships and organise after-school programs for our kids.

Please list links to your Website and Social Media Platforms here: 

ammish.org
https://www.facebook.com/AmmishCD/

Describe in detail what your Organisation does: 

One of the biggest issues in South African townships is that after school many kids aren’t provided with a safe and nurturing environment where they can spend their free time and prepare for the next school day. They end up unsupervised on the streets and are exposed to the risk of drug abuse and other bad influences. Ammish has developed a concept to effectively break this circle and keep the children in a supportive and fun environment during afternoons. Therefore, the organization establishes cooperation’s with primary schools to take over their rooms and premises after school’s out. From that moment the Ammish team is responsible for the children’s well-being and organizes fun and educational activities, sportive events and homework support. At this stage Ammish has running contracts with 5 schools in Soweto while many more are waiting to be included into the program.

In addition to the after-school program Ammish is also operating a soup kitchen. Because a lot of our beneficiaries arrive at school without packed lunch, the kitchen service is an important supplement to all educational activities by ensuring a healthy learning atmosphere. Despite generous food donations from local supermarkets the soup kitchen is not yet running with the needed capacity and is still operating independently from the after-school projects. This originates in lacking cooking facilities which could be used by the organization. In the long-run the soup kitchen is supposed to move into a new location with suitable cooking space to be able to provide for all children in need. Furthermore, the kitchen project shall be intertwined with the after-school projects after relocation.

How long has your Organisation been operational? 

Since May 2017.

In your opinion, what has been the most challenging aspect of running your Organisation? 

As such a young and rapidly expanding organisation it’s very challenging to find enough donors for our growing financial needs.

Describe your Nonprofit Journey in three words: 

Breathtaking, challenging, thankful

Do you collaborate with other Causes? If yes, would you like to mention them? 

Not yet, but we definitely would like to!

If you had one Organisation wish, what would it be? 

That all children are well educated and have the same starting conditions for their lives.

In your opinion, which skills do Nonprofits in your Country lack? 

– marketing
– accounting
– fundraising
– web development
– legal expertise

Looking back at your Cause Journey, what advice would you give a newbie Organisation? 

Don’t expand to fast and concentrate on the core of your mission.

If you could change one thing about the Nonprofit Landscape, what would it be? 

Make them cooperate more and reduce competition.

Which Cause achievement are you most proud of? Feel free to elaborate on why and include any links: 

We were hoping to be chosen for Santa Shoebox (a project that gives Christmas presents in shoeboxes to children) like in 2017. Unfortunately we were not. So we encouraged our partners, friends and donors to pack shoeboxes for our beneficiaries. In the end we were very proud to be able to offer a large amount of boxes to our kids, despite of not being chosen by Santa Shoebox!

https://ammish.org/campaigns/christmas-shoebox-campaign-2018_674/

Last question, if your friends had to describe your Organisation in three words, which would they use? 

Engaged, selfless, visionary