The New Life Centre for Girls located in President Park is asking for assistance to create a better environment for the young girls.
Founder of the centre, Khopotso Nakin explained that the New Life Centre is a home, child and youth care centre housing up to 17 young girls from different provinces in South Africa.
Nakin said the centre was first established and located in Hillbrow where they had a drop-in centre and an outreach programme which targeted girls in brothels and was aimed at helping young women.
“We later had to make a decision to have a centre or drop-in centre. To which we went with the centre as we wanted to house and care for women. We take in a maximum of 20 girls at the moment as our idea is to give them that home and intimate loving opportunity as most of them left their houses for several reasons such as abuse and violence among others.
“We are currently registered as a public benefit organisation, non-profit organisation and we are in the process of registering with the Department of Social Development. In order for us to be a fully registered organisation with the Department of Social Development, we need to meet their requirements. Which is why we would like the public and organisations to help us.”
Nakin added that the centre needs four qualified care workers, a social worker, a security guard, a cook and a cleaner, two admin workers and garden or general worker. “Because we do not have funds, we cannot afford them. We also need to pay rent, water and electricity which are a challenge as we do not have stable funding. We rely on donations only at the moment.
“If community members can help us with things like transport for the kids to go to school, food and uniforms or monetary donations we would appreciate it because we need to employ qualified staff for us to be able to get help from the Social Development Department.
The house is also in need of renovations, lawn mowing and the kitchen and laundry machine needs fixing. If anyone wants to help the centre this Christmas, it would help make a difference and bring positive hope for the new year.
Details: Khopotso Nakin 079 843 4154.
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