''Today we’re at the Khaya Centre - Mount Olive in Johannesburg, South Africa. The Khaya Centre - Mount Olive in the Lehae community focuses on changing behaviour, care and support through Community Based HIV/AIDS programmes. The Lehae community is infamous for its high numbers of unemployment, domestic violence, HIV/AIDS infections and poverty. These social problems cause a lot of children to drop out of school in order to take care of their sick parents or younger siblings. Mount Olive offers the community help to fight these challenges.
Advice about health and day care for young children
It’s a community without clinics, post offices etc. This makes the Khaya Centre terribly important. This is a place where people from the community get advice about health issues, where young children (3-6 years) attend day care en where they are prepared for school. Orange Babies supports this part of the Khaya Centre. I think it’s great to see these little kids in class and it’s good to know they all get a nutritious meal.
In the afternoon the teenagers come to the Centre for the ‘’Young Life Group’’. It’ s super important to provide this group in particular with information about sexuality. But also to offer the teenagers empowerment and support to chase their dreams.
Great news!
During Orange Babies’ most recent visit at the Khaya Centre John Kattenberg, one of the founders of Orange Babies, asked the kids what they wanted most of all. They told him that they would love to go camping. And guess what… today we could tell them the great news that they will go on a four days camping trip! Many of these children have never even left Johannesburg, let alone gone camping. For a camp you obviously need things like towels, pillowcases, bikinis and swim shorts. Fortunately, the Orange Babies South Africa team got all this from their sponsors!
