|
Emasithandane Children's Project (Emasi) is a home for orphaned and other vulnerable children in Nyanga, one of the poorest townships in Cape Town.
With unemployment that hovers around 70% and one of the highest crime rates in South Africa, there are so many problems that many outsiders believe that nothing can be done.
However, compassionate and dependable people such as Mama Zelphina Maposela radiate hope of a better tomorrow.
Mama moved to Nyanga from the Eastern Cape in 1974. She had always been interested in community development and worked for years with community health programs focused on home-based care towards patients suffering from tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS.
As many of these patients lay in bed dying, they worried about their children's stigmatized future as AIDS orphans and made Mama promise to find them a safe home. Mama Maposela has stayed true to that promise.
When she could not find foster homes for these children, she decided to create one herself and in 1994 became an official foster parent to three of these AIDS orphans.
Over a decade later, the only criticism one can make is that Mama has had too big a heart. Despite lacking any significant or stable source of funding, Emasithandane has grown to include 32 children living permanently in her small home and adjacent shack.
But Mama did not stop there and now also opens her home to 25 other children by operating a community feeding kitchen and a daycare center for children in the community.
The Emasi community of dedicated women volunteers has used Mama's initiative to provide an astonishing safe-haven to these vulnerable and negleted children.
Among other things, Emasi has now hired one long-time volunteer named Hazel who now does all the bookkeeping and administrative work at the Home, as well as cooking all meals and packing school lunches.
However, Emasi still does not have sufficient funds to pay enough caretakers to provide the children with the consistent care and attention they require.
Without the money to buy nutritious food, medicine, beds or basic appliances, the children still do not have their basic needs met. They are in desperate need of more space; 32 children cannot grow and flourish when each child shares a single mattress with three others.
Emasi also needs to address the children's educational and psychological needs but cannot do so until caretakers with such expertise can be hired.
Emasithadane is counting on our generosity to make the difference! |
