Orphanage is in need of sponsors for a facelift

MSHOLOZI – The founder of a locally based orphanage New Year’s resolutions is for the building to receive a facelift. The structure that is used as a home for her more than 60 children is made of corrugated iron.

“If the kids can have a better home, I would be the happiest person on earth. The children are currently exposed to all the elements, if hot it becomes extremely hot and when it is cold, they are extremely cold as well,” said Mama Esther Nkosi.

“Above all, air easily circulates in and out of the structures, exposing the kids to cold, fever and illness,” she said.

Her wish list includes having a double-storey building with a clinic, storeroom and study room for the children.

“Some can live upstairs and the others downstairs,” she said.

The centre also needs proper transport as the children need to visit clinics for their treatment as some take medication, including antiretroviral treatment on a regular basis.
“We currently have to take 16 children every month and it is difficult to use public transport,” she said.

The home is in dire need of a good Samaritan who can supply them with disposable nappies on a regular basis. “Eleven of the small kids still need them and we expect two-month-old twins soon whose mother is critically ill,” she said.

One of the centre’s achievements so far she said was that all the children who lived there before, had passed matric with flying colours, an achievement which she attributed to the dedicated retired teachers who volunteered their services of helping the children with their homework and study.

“Some of them pursued careers in engineering, astronomy, aviation, theology and other categories.
“I am glad to have been a passage to their bright future,” she added.

She said currently she needed help with one of her boys who is deaf.
“If we could only find an institution to teach him handwork so that he could be independent, like anyone else,” Nkosi said.
What upset her at times were allegations that her children were sometimes treated unfairly at their schools.

“One of them told me that there was a uniform donation at her school and she was presented with a pullover which was, however, taken away from her supposedly because she lived in the centre,” she said.

Nkosi opened and registered her safe haven as a non-profit organisation in 2004 and currently depends on donations from various donors including police, churches and members of the community.