Providing foster care for children orphaned by HIV/AIDS in
Cape Town, South Africa

Overview

Based on a model that has been tested in practice as a viable alternative to institutionalized child-care, Home from Home developed a program for foster care, and was registered as a charity in May 2005. Believing that children thrive and grow in as close to a family environment as possible, and preferably within their own communities, Home from Home aims to provide supported and supervised foster care for orphaned, abandoned and vulnerable children in small family homes in their own communities.

Program initiatives include:

• Have no more than six children in each home, all cared for by a House Mother with a part-time assistant
• Provide fill supervision and back-up for each House Mother and encourage support from the local community
• Monitor each home to ensure that the children are well cared for and that all their needs are being addressed
• Ensure that siblings remain together wherever possible and that children continue in full-time education
• Offer support to each House Mother by means of initial and ongoing training support groups and counseling
• Ensure that each group of children and their House Mother is supported by a small group of committed volunteers
• Actively seek long-term care for children by identifying family members, or possible adoptive parents, and where possible integrate children back into their own families

Need

South Africa faces a very real crisis of children being orphaned or abandoned due to HIV/AIDS. Currently 28 500 children are abandoned every year. Many of these children end up in institutions.

The majority of the children adopted into the Home from Home program are HIV+, and therefore require homes that will be attentive to their emotional needs and medical needs. Believing that these children will flourish best in a home-like environment, Home from Home from home has stepped out of the typical model and aimed at several home situations with a parent figure and family setting.

The Project

In 2006, Wellspring funded land purchase and construction of our first house with Home from Home in Ilitha Park, Khayelitsha. The project was completed in April 2007, and one house mother and six children now make it their home. Our support of this project is two-fold: property costs and annual costs. The property costs include land purchase, house construction, and furnishings, and the annual costs include clothing, transportation, school fees, maintenance, house mother salaries and other basic expenses. While the property costs have been funded, Wellspring has committed to provide the annual running costs for a minimum of three years.

Wellspring has provided the funds to build two homes and now maintains the running costs of both.

View Photos from this project.