Nehemiah Project was founded in 2010 by Johan and Sanne to meet and assist the needs of the community of Roodewal in Worcester, South Africa as they reflect God’s love for His people. It functions under the umbrella of Youth With A Mission and is a registered Non-For-Profit Organisation.
It was out of Johan and Sanne’s experience with the local communities during their Discipleship Training School’s Outreach with Youth With A Mission in 2008 in Worcester that the vision for Nehemiah Project was birthed. At that time their outreach team had assisted one of the local NGOs – Kibbutz El-Shammah – working among the community of Roodewal.
Though it was a short outreach, Johan and Sanne felt the need to return and continue assisting the community development projects of Kibbutz El-Shammah. While they focused most of their work on children and young adults, they were exposed to the needs of these people on daily basis, and so a desire was forged in their hearts: the desire to love them and reflect God’s greater love for His people.
In early 2010 they moved to Worcester, established their family as part of the community and planted the seeds of what would be known as Nehemiah Project.
Since 2010 the project has developed from an after-school program with a small group of 8-10 boys, to much bigger groups for both genders in different age categories. Throughout the years we have had open arms for both short-term volunteers and long-term staff, those seeking internship opportunities and platforms to grow in their God-given gifts and skills as they serve our communities in Worcester.
As the different programs developed over time, our team of long-term staff has also grown. We are blessed to have Wilfred and Christine Reurink as leaders since 2016. In 2019 Shelton Eiman, who grew up as a kid in the program from the start, became staff, together with Marius Rabie. In 2020 Loren Beukes, and Jaques and Amelda Mingo with their children joined as staff, these are all local people.
Inspired and driven by the picture of restoration and the rebuilding of the destroyed city of Jerusalem in the book of Nehemiah (found in the Bible), our heartbeat is to reach out to the people of Roodewal to share God’s love, to restore hope and to rebuild lives.
We continue to make efforts to see this reality manifest day after day as we see the beautiful fruits of the planted seeds becoming visible before our eyes – growing hope in the families and communities and taking them to “another level”!