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We are in our thirteenth year of operation and continue to be a support service to the community of Alexandra. Life Line Alexandra has touched the lives of the community of Alexandra and its neighbouring areas by having a safety net on one’s door step where people can just come and speak to a counsellor in a warm and confidential place using the preferred language of the client.
Most of our counselors in our outreach centres speak at least four African languages and that helps in managing a counseling session where people feel heard, understood and above all not judged for whatever they are going through in their lives.
Issues that we cover include family relations, rape, loss, physical abuse, peer pressure, behavioral problems, drug abuse and substance abuse, learning problems, domestic violence, suicide and stress.
During the course of this past year we had 2079 interventions. 1139 people came to the office and 940 interventions came through our outreach projects.
Counsellor Training
Counsellor training was done in the Johannesburg and Alexandra Centre. We have four new counsellors, two have subsequently been placed elsewhere leaving us with two who are currently finding their way in the organisation with work related challenges. In February we trained two of our community leaders and two Reverends and five women members from the Anglican Church.
Wise Choice
We have trained nine people on this programme, three school leavers and six adults who are doing intern training.
Partnerships
• We have formed a new partnership with St. Michael’s Church and we have trained seven of their church members as counsellors. We plan to run a satellite unit at their centre and still have the new counselors volunteer at our Life Line Centre once a week or according to their availability.
• The Alexandra Service Provider’s Meeting is held every second Tuesday of the month
• The Alexandra Development forum meetings are held on the third Saturday of the month
• With the Greater Alexandra Partnership Against Aids we are working as the Administrator of the Forum. Meetings are held every third Thursday of the month and the Board Meetings are every second Monday.
ALXFM
We still run radio counseling programmes and our Administrator who is also a Peer Educator is running educational programmes fortnightly.
Sally’s Workshop and the Society for the Jewish Handicapped
These two programmes have run well for more than thirteen years and Life Line has recruited Adult Mentally Retarded people to work in sheltered workshops. We meet every three months with the workshop coordinator who is a nurse, to deal with issues that affect the group.
Future Plans
To employ a Social Worker to help us with schools project because we have five high schools in the community and sixteen primary schools.
Highlights of the Year
The Alexandra Centre has grown in the sense that we now have Mavis Rathogwa as the Counsellor and Admin support, Grant Monareng as the Peer Education Project Coordinator, Anthony Mmatli as a support for Peer Education and Centre Admin.
One hundred Peer Educators were trained last year for this new project from local NGO’s and their desire to reach out to the community has made our community colourful and alive.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the Kagiso Trust for supporting the Greater Alexandra Partnership Against Aids.
A very big thank you to Toyota South Africa for supporting the Life Line Radio counselling programmes since inception. The slots are also shared with our new Peer Education unit.
We would also like to thank our donors First Rand and the Anglo American Chairman’s Fund who have assisted with the day to day running costs of the centre.
We would also like to thank the staff for the very valuable work they are doing in the community.
OUR OVERALL THANKS
We would like to thank our donors, community, staff and Trustees and all those who contributed to the organization over this reporting period. Thank you for being a part of our family and for the role you have played over this past year.
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