The disadvantaged community of Orange Farm is in need
Childhood Roads Institute has 358 children who come to the centres for food and education and funds are desperately needed to assist with the building of a shelter to accommodate abused women and children and to expand their empowerment programme.
CHILDHOOD Roads Institute was founded in 2009 and registered the year after with the aim of empowering the disadvantaged community of Orange Farm and its surroundings. It currently operates in three extensions of Orange Farm.
The community was and is still faced with various social challenges which emanate from poverty, unemployment, domestic violence and various chronic illnesses such as HIV/Aids, breast cancer and TB.
Childhood Roads Institute has 358 children who come to the centres for food and education. Funds are desperately needed to assist with the building of a shelter to accommodate abused women and children and to expand their empowerment programme.
Orange Farm is widely regarded as one of South Africa’s largest informal settlements, with a population of 76 767, who reside in 21 029 households. The community is characterised by high rates of HIV/Aids and TB, poverty, child and women abuse, substance abuse (alcohol related), high unemployment and crime and many other social ills.
Research has shown that many children are susceptible to violence, hunger and other abuses and often are from child-headed, single-parent or grandparent-headed households, with limited education and very few resources. Their families are in all likelihood surviving on a state pension or social grant.
Projects already implemented include feeding orphans and vulnerable children from six to 18 years old, offering psychosocial support and providing information and referrals to the youth. There is also a home-based care project which takes care of neglected elderly persons through health monitoring, assisting them at paypoints when receiving their grants, at clinics and at hospitals.
Achievements through Childhood Roads Institute include: more than 1 800 youth have received skills which has reduced the unemployment rate in Orange Farm, with some youths starting their own businesses; a drop-in centre for children, where they are assisted with food and shelter and helped with homework, while enabling them to play; and empowering the elderly.
To enable Childhood Roads Institute to raise funds, it is presenting a choral musical concert featuring The Welsh Male Voice Choir of South Africa, at Rosebank Union Church, corner William Nichol and Sandton drives, on Saturday, May 20, at 6.30pm. General admission is R120. For tickets please phone Berchmans Ntezukevigira on 071 958 6639 or John Benfield on 011 942 1325/084 740 6497, alternatively email childhoodri@gmail.com or john.benfield@webmail.co.za
For free daily local news in the south, visit our sister newspapers Alberton Record, Comaro Chronicle, Southern Courier and Get it Joburg South Magazine.
Remember to visit our Facebook, Twitter and Instagram pages. You can also email our offices on cvdwalt@caxton.co.za, juliem@caxton.co.za or luckyt@caxton.co.za
Add us on WhatsApp today! Alberton Record: 060 644 5264 Comaro Chronicle: 079 427 8074 and Southern Courier: 079 404 5789.
