Volunteering

Service Description

After receiving calls from people in the community telling her of children, some as young as 6 months old, being abandoned due to poverty or their parents having died of AIDS, Miriam would collect these children and take care of them while she traced their next-of-kin, which often proved to be a futile exercise. The response of a growing community of people on a passionate quest to change perspectives, beliefs and, ultimately, outcomes by mobilizing individuals around South Africa to take positive action against the tragedy of children orphaned and made vulnerable by HIV/AIDS. The stigma of orphaned and vulnerable children being placed in institutionalized orphanages was not appealing: research has highlighted the negative social consequences of this strategy. Our model ensures that each child is placed with the willing child-minder for the night and attends the centre during the day. The Centre are a way to bring hope, where there is only despair. A way to turn sorrow into joy. A way to shelter those who were homeless. A way to wipe out helplessness and build dreams. To establish 50 Centers throughout South Africa. The overall approach is to use the current operating entity with its associated procedures manual as the basis for developing more centres.

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