Phambili ngeThemba (“Going Forward with Hope”) is a ministry that was started at PMC in 2000 as a response to a terrible fire in the Joe Slovo informal settlement of Langa. Langa is the oldest township in Cape Town and Joe Slovo is a community made up of thousands of rough shacks crowded together on the outskirts of Langa. As in all of the informal settlements in Cape Town, there is no indoor plumbing in Joe Slovo; there are communal water taps and rows of broken down, filthy portable toilets scattered throughout the area. The shacks are very close together and made of flammable materials, so when a fire starts it can rapidly spread to many shacks, especially with the high winds we often get. From that initial relief effort in 2000, Phambili ngeThemba has grown into a full-scale non-profit organization with multiple areas of ministry. A sewing training course was offered for a number of years to help unemployed people in the area gain a marketable skill. This ended at the end of 2008 with the retirement of the trainer, but a new branch, Zanokhanyo, came into being before the sewing course ended.

A large portion of the work of Phambili ngeThemba takes place in a township school, Mokone Primary School. Prior to involvement with this government school Phambili was involved at the Chris Hani Independent School which operated in Joe Slovo for many years and then moved to a location on the outskirts of Joe Slovo in 2007 and 2008. At the beginning of 2009 the property where the school was meeting was destroyed by vandals and the school was closed. The students were relocated to Mokone Primary, and the various ministries of Phambili were welcomed there. A library was established in memory of the Chris Hani Independent School, and it is now a hub of activity in the school. After-school English clubs are offered there and we are hoping to offer after school programs in math there this year, as well as perhaps a chess club. Leslie teaches a course called, “Life at the Crossroads” to Grade 8 students. It is a curriculum developed by Campus Crusade for Christ which helps young people learn how to make wise choices with their lives, and it is quite evangelistic in its approach. In addition, since 2005 Phambili has been linking sponsors from PMC with orphaned children, first at the Chris Hani school and now at Mokone Primary. Currently, 37 children are receiving nutritious food parcels twice a month. When they come to receive their parcels they are taught a Bible lesson, are given the opportunity to make a decision to follow Christ, and they are prayed for. Sponsors are encouraged to be as involved as they can be with “their children.” All of the orphans live with relatives (usually grannies or older siblings) in their community, but the families struggle to make ends meet.