Reaching out to child-headed households on the North Coast

The North Coast Courier Orphan Fund has been raising money to help those who look after orphans and vulnerable children on the North Coast for nearly 16 years and this is publicized in the Courier regularly. So often people ask where the “Orphanage” is.

And it is not an orphanage that we help but child-headed households and children living with their gogo.

The 2011 Census figures say that there were 333 child-headed households in KwaDukuza (headed by children under 18 years old).

And that 34% of these households had no income. These figures don’t include children living with their gogos.

We estimate that we are helping over 1000 children.

Along the coast there are various day centres, creches and feeding schemes that care for children daily – all day or (for older children) after school, before they go home to their gogos or siblings.

Most of these schemes don’t have a fund-raising voice – so it is our mission to help them with food and transport money to get to school and to try and make sure that the hard earned funds go to the right place.

Apart from the core initiatives of raising money and awareness the Fund also runs annual campaigns.

The Soup Socks and Snuggles is a second quarter project, soon to be started and in the 4th quarter a Christmas campaign collecting food stuffs and Christmas presents to bring a little joy into young lives. (for example the Umhlali Bowls Club’s 2018 annual Christmas collection, this year they collected an abundance of presents which were given to children at Christmas parties.)

The Fund committee met on January 30 to make the Fund’s quarterly allocations.

The money raised (and distributed) for the seven months August through to the present is reflected in the table.

R322,984 was raised:

• Live music with Winston Smile and good food at Mo-Zam-Bik set the tone for an enjoyable evening in August where over R22,000 was raised.
• The popular annual Miss Ballito pageant donated R10,000 to the Fund.
• Ashton’s 2018 debutantes presented the Orphan Fund with R10,000.
• The very popular, now bi-annual Dudley Pringle Family Fishing Day raised over R30,000.
• The Baldwin Christmas Hat Walk donated R50,000 to the Orphan Fund.
• The Christmas Fair Fund donated R20,000.
• The popular annual Durban Symphonic Choir Christmas concert was enjoyed by all of the capacity audience at All Souls church.
• The Ballito Open Golf Day between Christmas and New Year was fully subscribed.
• The first annual Women’s Breakfast was held at Gianni’s restaurant, raising over R20,000 and Ballito Rotary blessed the fund with a cheque for R10,000, making for a very successful morning.
  Plus many other donations gratefully received.

A very simple way of helping at no cost or inconvenience to you is to display a Litres for Education sticker on your car and fill up at BP Ballito or BP Sibaya.

They will donate 10 cents for every litre of fuel you fill, to The North Coast Courier Orphan Fund. Collect your sticker from BP or from the Courier offices.

The Orphan Fund is audited and registered as a non-profit organization and has also been approved by the Receiver of Revenue for tax exemption. This means that donors can receive a tax deduction on donations made.

North Coast Courier Orphan Fund bank details: ABSA branch: 630229, Acct No: 9109572488.

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