Social Outreach

OUR PROJECTS

ALEXANDRA EDUCATION COMMITTEE (AEC)

It is generally accepted that quality education is the only way to break the cycle of poverty, inequality and unemployment. The AEC is in its 26th year of pursuing this objective for the disadvantaged high school pupils in and around Alexandra. We currently have 249 sponsored high school students. We now have children at 30  partner schools! We have found a need to place our students at quality and well-resourced schools where the class numbers are relatively small and there is good array of extra-mural/sporting activities.

DOLPHINS ACRE

Dolphins Acre is home to 44 residents. Our entrance criteria are Schizophrenia, bi-polar mood disorder, major depressive disorder. There are only 2 facilities in the country that take the intellectually disabled who also have severe psychiatric disability as it is just too difficult to care for them. Only 11 of our residents have families.  There 22 residents with intellectual disability plus severe chronic psychiatric disability as well as having co-morbidities such as epilepsy, high BP, diabetes. Twelve  previously “normal” people who through no fault of their own developed severe psychiatric disabilities and 10 are Psych-Geriatric residents. These are old folk who have severe psychiatric disability and some of them also have  physical disability and dementia. There are 15 staff member who care for the residents in various ways. 36 of the residents need to be bathed and shaved daily and 25 need to have their bedding washed daily. Checking to see that the residents are wearing sun hats and are not either over dressed or under dressed.

GOOD SHEPHERD

We provide sandwiches and donated food to Witkoppen Clinic and New Life Centre for Girls. Previously this project fed the street children of Hilbrow. This project is currently restructuring and looking at alternative ways of helping the needy.

NEW LIFE CENTRE FOR GIRLS

We are a home which caters for abused girls of various ages. We ensure that the girls have a safe home to live in, attend school and feel loved.

WITKOPPEN CLINIC

Witkoppen Clinic offers one-stop, holistic patient-centric medical care including comprehensive social services to address the social determinants of health. We have the following programmes in our Social Services Department:

¨ Child and Family Care (CFC) - Currently, we have a caseload of 152 children consisting of foster care cases, court cases and Place of Safety cases.

¨ Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVC) - we provide  economic and psychosocial support, poverty alleviations measures such as the distribution of food parcels and strengthen the capacity of parents and caregivers to care for OVCs. Witkoppen’s OVC Programme provides  psychosocial services to 480 families which includes 814 children.

 ZEVENFONTEIN / COSMO

Zevenfontein Education Fund (ZEF) sponsor children in Cosmo City with stationery, school uniforms, school trips, homework sessions and food. In addition to assisting ZEF, St Michael’s supports 17 families with food parcels each month. These are delivered to All Saints, Fourways and given to the families in Cosmo City. 


HOW CAN YOU BE INVOLVED

There are a number of ways people can be involved in this ministry - financial support, supplying soup or sandwiches to the various projects, assisting in the collection & distribution of the food.

If you would like to be involved please click here so we can give you more information.