Become a Part of Achieving a Goal

Have you ever been involved in helping others to achieve a goal? It's quite a fascinating process and very rewarding when the person achieves their goal. The first step is always to identify what is required in order to achieve the goal that has been set.

I have had a goal for years. Many years! It's hard to say whether it would be better described this as a goal or a dream. Let me explain. It was tremendously exciting to observe the process of my mother's first book coming into print. The day we received samples of illustrations was so incredible. We spread the images out on the table and analyzed them for ages. This was when we were certain that my mother's story was actually becoming a book.

When we received the hard cover picture book and were able to hold it in our hands, the excitement was tangible. It's an experience that is very difficult to put into words.

My belief in my mother's writing and love of her work began long before that first book came into print. You see, my mother was a teacher for some 25 years. I had the joy of being one of her students at all of 2 years old.

When I moved to another school and up in the ladder of classes, I had the privilege of watching my mother prepare her lessons. She did so with such love and dedication. My favourite was when she asked me to listed to a poem, story or competition that she had prepared to help to illustrate a subject or theme that they were working on. In some ways I was the Guinea pig as I  listened to each story before the class did. However, while I listened to each item, my appreciation for my mother's writing grew and a dream began to develop.

My dream is to see my mother's books come to print. I am fortunate that my dream is in keeping with my mother's goals and dreams too. My mother has at least 20 manuscripts that need to come to print. There is a lot I can do to help her, however, we need funds for purchasing:

• The adobe creative suite so as to prepare the stories in the best possible way. Indesign has all kids of wonderful options to prepare the layout that is just not available in a Word document. 
• Most of the stories require illustrations. Although I can do some of the illustrations, there are some that we need to outsource and this requires funding.
• There are many other expenses involved with purchasing the ISBN number, applying for copyright and then marketing the books effectively.

I am extremely excited to announce that you can help to make this dream a reality. You can be a part of enabling quality children's picture books to transition from manuscript to published book. We have a set up a crowd fundraiser campaign. The target is very low for 20 books, but we hope that by starting the ball rolling, so to speak, that interest will increase. Of course, once we have one or more of the books out, then sales of the books might help to enable further books to come into being.

Please join us in this exciting process. If you enjoy to help others to achieve their goals, you will definitely love this process.

When Crowds went Wild and Grown Men Cried

Last week we shared some thoughts about our preparations for Mandela Day. Well, that special day is tomorrow, 18 July, and so we wish to share a special story. A true story.

It was 1995. South Africa had just seen the end of apartheid, the birth of democracy and the election of a new President. As he came into power, he must have seen a Country almost on the brink of civil war. Here were millions of people free and yet not free. Something radical had to be done. As this great man, Nelson Mandela, toured the townships, rural areas; cities, towns and villages, he heard their cries and he saw their great frustration. He felt their anger, after years of oppression. Many sort revenge. Mandela, or Madiba as he was affectionately called, had suffered more than most, shut away on a tiny island, far from his family and friends. Then it appears, he had an idea. Wearing a baseball type cap with the Springbok emblem on it, he began to talk about it to the crowds which gathered everywhere he went. He started to encourage them to think of a great game. The game of rugby.

Now this was no mean task, as the black people of South Africa were not generally rugby fans. It was considered a white man's game but here was their new and beloved President and leader, trying hard to change that. The 3rd Rugby World Cup Tournament was looming and miraculously, South Africa had won the rights to host this event. Not only that, but every match was to be played on South African soil!. To top it all, the South African National team, the Springboks, were allowed to compete! 

Rugby fans throughout the land were wild with excitement and anticipation. The cry rang out

                        "One team, one country!"

When a semi-final was played in Cape Town at the famous Newlands Stadium, I was there! I stood on the grass in the middle of that stadium and looked up at the crowd of almost 50 000. I thought I was dreaming! But I was not there to take part in the game, however. I had an unusual task to perform.

Earlier that morning, I had enjoyed breakfast with the team at a nearby hotel. Later, I stood in the tunnel, as the teams ran onto the field. I was faint with the tension and excitement of it. I was not conscious of it at the time but this was history in the making! I looked up at the bright blue sky and then turned towards our beloved Table Mountain. I stood there, as if in a dream, not as a reporter, not as an official; not as a member of staff or of the organizing Committee, but merely as the fundraiser of a local charity, whose sole mandate was to feed thousands of hungry primary school children from schools around the Cape Peninsula. Children who came from such impoverished homes, that they left home hungry every morning, having had nothing to eat since the night before. As any teacher will tell you, "you can't teach a hungry child!"

It was those few words and my own passionate belief in them, that had given me the courage and the strength to approach the rugby authorities with an idea. After what seems, in retrospect, very little negotiation on my part, they agreed to let our Charity run a fundraising competition around the world cup. The main prize, to be awarded to a school child, would be two tickets to the world cup match to be played at Newlands Stadium! 

This was indeed a great opportunity for our Charity. It would not only generate much needed funds, which would go directly towards providing more school meals, but it would give us wonderful publicity in all the local papers. So I was there on that special day, to see the winner, a young primary school boy and his father, take up their prize.

I watched the match in luxury, from the VIP lounge. During the curtain raiser, I called some cousins of mine, great rugby fans, whom I knew would be glued to their television set and asked them as a joke, to guess where I was!

They couldn't of course and they were more than a little surprised. Knowing me as they did, it would have seemed most unlikely!

I do believe that most of the country came to stand still whilst those matches were played. Thousands upon thousands of South Africans cried when Madiba, dressed in our team's Springbok jersey, watched the final match, when Joel Stransky took that winning kick and won the game and the cup for South Africa. As Madiba held up that "Golden Cup" before handing it to the Springbok Captain, Francois Pienaar, the crowd went wild and grown men cried.

Talk of the World Cup went on for months. Photographs flooded every newspaper and magazine and then as these things do, the excitement gradually faded and life returned to normal.

Years later, came the talk of "INVICTUS", a movie to be made with the great Madiba and the World Cup, as it's central theme.

Paging through our local newspapers one evening, I noticed an advertisement placed by a casting agency. They were asking for people to audition for the crowd scenes for the movie. I called the following morning. A day or two later, I was interviewed, measured and photographed and told that I would be contacted in due course. I did not hold much hope but, lo and behold, the call came and I had been accepted.

So once again, I would be at the famous stadium in Newlands, but this time not in the "royal" box, as it were, but on one of the stands, waving a flag and shouting my lungs out! Me, a pensioner, a grandmother, a lover of books and art and music, being filmed at a rugby match? For a real, full length Hollywood style movie? Of course, I would be lost in the crowd, so it did not really count, I thought.

It just could not be me, never! Was this really happening? Had I really got out of bed at four thirty that morning, to report to the agency by five thirty? Had I really just eaten an absurdly lavish breakfast, laid on by special caterers, for everyone gathered there?

The answer was yes, to all of that, because life is full of wonderful surprises and we never really know what is waiting for us, just around that proverbial corner and that is what makes life so exciting.

Written by

Rosemary Kahn

 

Our Preparations for Mandela Day

Did you know that Mandela Day is coming up? Yes, there is a day dedicated to Nelson Mandela. It is interesting to have a day to commemorate Nelson Mandela. It does not fall on the day of his leaving this world for the day began when Mandela was still alive. Mandela day falls on his birthday, the 18th of July. The significance of this day lies in what Mandela strove to achieve.

There are a few powerful statements that Mandela made which are very inspiring. Here is one of them: “What counts in life is not the mere fact that we have lived. It is what difference we have made to the lives of others that will determine the significance of the life we lead.” – Nelson Mandela

I am not sure when I first heard of Nelson Mandela but I became aware of the worlds interest in him when I was in the UK after high school. I had gone into the South Africa House on Trafalgar Square in London for something and could not help but notice some students standing outside. When I came out again, I stopped to find out what their protest was about. They were campaigning to free Mandela!

I asked them if they knew who Mandela was and what they knew about South Africa. No, none of them had been to South Africa, none of them really knew much about Mandela either. They just knew that he was in prison and were staging a protest for his release. As to their knowledge of South Africa, one student described South Africa as having lions that roam around the streets.

I smiled and let them know that I had lived in South Africa for many years and although I had met some impressive people and I had seen lions in game parks, I had not seen any lions roaming down any of the streets.

Some compare Nelson Mandela to a lion. He had an incredible inner strength and a vision of a world with unity and where children are assisted to achieve and to contribute to the world. He had many positive messages that he left the world.

Why do I share these thoughts now, nearly two weeks before Mandela Day? Well, we are preparing a special article to share on Mandela Day. I was just typing it up and I was so inspired that I have requested more stories of this nature to be written as well. I am so looking forward to sharing more about the development of this and other books. They are of course written by one of my most inspiring teachers, none other than Rosemary Kahn.

So mark your calendars and visit this blog on Mandela Day. We have a wonderful story to share with you and we aim to add this to a collection of stories. There are plenty more where it came from, so stay tuned for a book in the making. The next in the collection of books written by Rosemary Kahn, one of my favourite authors.

This post is prepared for you by Shoshanah Shear, occupational therapist, healing facilitator, certified infant massage instructor, freelance writer, author of "Healing Your Life Through Activity - An Occupational Therapist's Story" and co-author of "Tuvia Finds His Freedom".

On Moving Countries

What I miss most about having moved from South Africa to Jerusalem, is my garden. The absolute greenness of it.  The profusion of flowers all in pastel shades of blue, pink, mauve and some purple, soft butter yellow and bright  shining white.  I miss the birds that visited every day and who came to splash in my two bird baths, from the tiny white eyes to the large and noisy hadedas. I have photographs of a hadeda standing in one of the baths on a particularly hot day.  He stood perfectly still for over an hour whilst his partner shouted at him from below. It was very entertaining.  I miss the butterflies, the bees and even the cheeky squirrels who would come right up to my patio steps looking for treats.  I collected acorns for them, which they loved and did not forget, from one year to the next. 

I miss my pet spider, who made the largest and most intricate golden web. It stretched across one of the pillars on the patio and was attached to a bamboo wind chime on the other side. She was there for more than a year and I was very careful not to disturb her. 

But most of all, I miss the peace.  It was just the most tranquil of places. Everyone said so. It was a quiet oasis not far from a busy road and yet shielded from the noise by the high hedges and several big old trees.

The house next door was where I had often played as a child, with the granddaughter of the owner, who just happened to be an old friend of my father's family.  In fact, my father's boyhood home was just one block away and I always thought how very strange that was.  That I should have come down from Central Africa and eventually, year's later, bought my home in a complex built on land that I knew so well from my childhood.  My parents said that it was meant to be and I agreed with them. I felt safe there and cocooned. I had made the garden into a perfect picture, a living picture, always changing as the seasons changed and yet always filled with a certain magic.  It was definitely where I belonged and yet, after sixteen years, it was time to move on.

I will always miss my garden, my perfect little patch of beauty.  My own small world which I had hoped to keep forever, but it was not to be. I now live in an apartment five floors up.  It does have a small balcony where I have put a few pot plants. I have a wonderful view over Jerusalem and the biggest bonus of all, my daughter and her husband live just downstairs. This is my home now and I am grateful for it every day. Who knows what the future holds?  Perhaps one day I will be blessed to have another beautiful garden.  In the meantime, I  have the use of a green and quiet park, just five minutes away and of course, my memories..  

This post is written by Rosemary Kahn, retired teacher, freelance writer and author of Grandma's Hat, Naomi's Tonsils, Why Unicorns Eat Lavender, Relationships and a number of School Readers

Recommending "Healing Your LIfe Through Activity"

I have just finished reading the updated version of Shoshanah Shear's book "Healing Your Life Through Activity." What an excellent read it is! I can thoroughly recommend it to anyone in the medical profession; those who are about to start any university course to do with medicine; for pharmacists (especially those pharmacies that stock assistive devices and wheelchairs); first aiders; housewives and even house husbands. We never know from day to day, what the future holds for us. This book is a step in the direction of "being prepared."

R.A. Kahn, retired teacher and published author

When the Past Provides Inspiration.

Are you from the time period that enjoyed to watch "The Sound of Music"? The "Sound of Music" was a family favourite in our family. We saw it on the big screen, purchased the record - remember those? We would listen to the songs for hours on end and practice many of the songs. Some of us would even practice some of the dances that went with them. That famous twirl being one of them.

Finding joy and incorporating joy into your life has become rather popular in recent times, but it's not a new idea! Julie Andrews sang many a song that helped one to internalize just how important joy is and gave us wonderful clues as to where joy can be found.

"The hills are alive, with the sound of music..." A famous start to one of the songs of this musical but it is so much more than a song. When one has joy in your heart, you can literally hear music wherever you are, especially when out in nature. The truth is, if you do not feel joy in your heart, by spending time in nature and listening to the wonderful silent sounds of nature you can begin to hear that music that Julie Andrews spoke of and if you will let it, the music will fill your heart with joy. So it really works both ways.

I was about to do a little research for a project we are working on when I stumbled upon this wonderful video. 50 years after the production of "The Sound of Music" Julie Andrews re-visits the places where most of the scenes were filmed and provides some wonderful behind the scenes insight into the story behind this special film.

If you have not seen the film or if it has been years since you have, do yourself a favour and look up the old movie "The Sound of Music". For those familiar with the film, take a break and enjoy learning a little of the story behind this film. Let the songs fill you with joy and inspiration for the week ahead.