Lerato Child and Youth Care Centre

Since 2000, my wife Lenie and I have been caring for abused and abandoned kids in our community. We started with a boy that was only two months old at the time. It was never our intention to look after more children, but pretty soon after that, the court, police and the social department started sending more kids to us. In 2004, we had 14 children in our family home.

The house we were living in, became too small so we sold it and bought a bigger house with eight bedrooms. It needed a lot of repairs, but we moved in and started to do what we needed to do so that we could raise the kids in a family environment. In 2007, after a lot of effort and without any government support, we managed to register Lerato Children's Home. Currently, we have seventeen children in the house. Their ages range from birth to eighteen years. They all attend public schools and participate in sporting activities etc.

After a long struggle, we had some good news mid March 2009. The Department of Social Development approved our application for financial support and from May 2009 we will be able to employ a social worker on a permanent basis. We will also be able to get more staff to help with the washing, ironing, cleaning of the house etc. Up to now, we had to do it all ourselves as I was the sole breadwinner and we could not afford such luxuries.

We are in the process to register The Lerato Chindren's Home Trust and hopefully, we will be able to ensure that Lerato Children's Home exist long after we are gone.

The funding that we receive will cater for about half of our current costs, but Lenie and I are very grateful as it means that we will be in a better position to start providing for our retirement in about six years. A bit late, I know, but we will make it.

The reward of seeing happy, normal children who will hopefully become responsible, caring adults, makes all the sacrifices one has to make, worthwhile