GMA: Giving children the opportunity to dream
Request from:
Lelani Meyer
Request for:
Thabang Children's Home in Thabazimbi
Angel 1:
Carl Rautenbach from Rotork Africa
Sponsoring:
Rotork will donate R20 000,00 towards linen for the new beds and cutlery for the 32 children who call Thabang Children's Home, their home
Angel 2:
The Good Morning Angels Fund
Sponsoring:
The GMA Fund will donate another R35 000,00 towards blankets and replacing necessities
Background:
The Thabang Children's Project has been a labour of love since its very beginning in August 2004. The project has been registered as a non-profit organisation, and Tessa White has been working in the community and on the ground from the start. Initially she went into the informal settlement to find people in need - but now, everybody knows Thabang. They have been operating on donations and funding from all over - and abroad. However, they've been struggling for some time to get enough funds together to buy 32 new mattresses for the children who call Thabang their home ...
Original request:
Ek bly in Thabazimbi en hier is 'n kinderhuis - Thabang Children's Home. Hulle versorg kinders van alle ouderdomme, wat nie meer ouers het nie, of wat tydelik uit die ouers se sorg verwyder is. Die dame daar, Tessa White probeer nou al vir geruime tyd borge kry vir nuwe matrasse vir die kinders se beddens. Hulle moet die matrasse dringend vervang en klink my elke keer kry hulle mense wat beloof om te help, maar dit dan nooit dit 'n realiteit maak nie. Dit sal so wonderlike wees as julle hulle dalk kan help of ovir hulle 'n borg kan opspoor. Hulle doen 'n wonderlike, spoor want hule doen 'n werklik onbaatsugtige werk en hul harte is op die regte plek.
More on the Thabang Children's Project in Thabazimbi:
When the German business man, Egon Mauss came to Thabazimbi in 1999 he bought some land and ran a game farm about 15 km away from the mining town. A few years later, the idea grew to get involved in some kind of social initiative in Thabazimbi. He commissioned a study to investigate about privately initiated social projects in South Africa who deal with social support for Aids-affected children.
As Egon Mauss learned, he was by no way the only one engaging on social ideas at Thabazimbi. In spring 2004 some people from Thabazimbi came together to exchange ideas of what could be done about poverty and abandoned or neglected children in the area. As a result the Thabang Children’s Home Trust was founded in August 2004.
Tessa White started her community project in the name of THABANG by visiting the tin shack settlement of Smash Block and helping the people where she could.
Women from the settlement joined in as volunteers and a Toyota Condor was sponsored by AB Labour, a local business, to become the red THABANG Condor, that is well known to the people as THABANG's car.
The Trust has been approved to be a Non-Profit organisation in March 2005 when Egon Mauss' nephew, Martin Schulte-Frohlinde moved from Germany to Thabazimbi with his wife, Viveka Ansorge and their 15-year-old daughter. Martin, being an architect and carpenter took care of the reconstruction and building works for the project. A former game lodge, with the surrounding land being donated by Egon Mauss to the Trust, was changed into a children's home and the Youth Centre was newly built on the farm of Cecil White, who leases his land to the Project.
In Smash Block, a small piece of land at the entrance was fenced in, Northam Platinum donated a trailor home, THABANG put in a second one and the Northam Clinic sent two nurses to offer daily services to the 20.000 people of Smash Block, who live without electricity, water supply and sewerage: the THABANG Community Care Centre was founded, people today simply call it the 'Clinic'.
Martin's wife took over THABANG's management together with Martin, Tessa and Cecil White.
In April 2006, building works were done, when Obakeng and April Moreo moved from Mafikeng to Thabazimbi to become the house parents of the 'girl's house', the THABANG Children's Place of Safety. That time the house had only one child, today it accommodates up to 22 girls and babies.
Two years after the founding, in November 2007, the Youth Centre and the Children's Place of Safety were registered as Places of Safety according to the South African Child Care Act.
Since spring 2006, the Community Care Centre receives Governmental funding and funding by the European Union for its Home-Based Care team.
Offering a wide range of services and receiving support from churches, businessses and lots of private people in Thabazimbi and around, THABANG Children's Project has become a well known charitable institution.