Supporting Orphans and Vulnerable Children

The Bottom Line - 6400 orphans

Ingwavuma Orphan Care began identifying orphans in the community and as the area is around 2100 square kms this was a major undertaking.
IOC is helping around 6500 orphans, either directly or through sub-grants which it gives to its partners Lulisandla Kumntwana and Tholulwazi Uzivikela. There are however, many children who are not being assisted in the District due to lack of funds and staff to reach them.

Interventions

• Our social worker and paralegal officers help get birth certificates and IDs and then to apply for governmental foster care grants.
• In the meantime emergency food parcels are provided for 3-4 months.
• Our orphan clubs in 20 schools provide structured psycho-social support to 400 orphans. The children in the clubs are given school uniforms. They set up vegetable gardens from which they can contribute to the school feeding schemes.
• We hold orphan camps in the holidays to give the children a wider view of the world, taking them to a beach, a game park or a city.
• We run bereavement workshops for small groups of children to assist them with their grief.
• We run support groups and visit the homes of foster parents (many of whom are grandmothers) to help them deal with the issues of bringing up another family.
• We have an agricultural officer who grows seedlings and then takes them to families and to the school clubs so that they can grow their own vegetables. He is also providing fruit trees for a longer term source of healthy food. He trains the family how to recycle their water so that they can help the vegetables to grow faster.
• We have a small scholarship scheme for children whom we have supported through school so that they can go on to further education. We are currently supporting 3 young people with scholarships. Our first scholar graduated in 2008 and is now employed by us as a social worker.

We reach many children through partnering with the local churches. There are about 120 church goers who decided to visit orphans in their nieghbourhood. They each visit between 2-4 families each several times a week assisting with homework, household chores, fetching water, playing with the children, praying with them. We call these people "family supporters". We provide training for them; teaching them about child development, government grants, child abuse and other relevant issues. We have 5 staff who are Family Support Coordinators. They serve as a link between the family supporters and our staff, referring families who need help with housing, food, grants etc. We also have a full time church liaison officer who is working with around 120 churches encouraging them to support orphans and families affected by AIDS. Our partner Lulisandla Kumntwana piloted this model of care and also has over 300 family supporters.