Cotlands’ new image inspires hope

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the staff at Cotlands baby sanctuary used to find it emotionally draining coming to work: they knew they would be arranging funerals for the HIV and Aids-infected babies who had little hope of survival.

Today, it’s the opposite as the sounds of children’s joyous laughter fill the centre at Turffontein in the south of Johannesburg.

Cotlands is no longer effectively a hospice for dying HIV babies because there simply aren’t many of these kids today.

That’s because the government’s widespread ARV (antiretroviral) treatment for HIV and Aids has been successful, especially in dramatically reducing transmission of the disease from pregnant mothers to their babies.

But Cotlands is still doing vital work for the community as a place where children are helped to get a good start in life, even if they come from challenging social circumstances.

The idea of babies dying on her watch is a totally foreign concept to Beauty Mokgotho, whose three and a half years at the organisation have been filled with happy children.

Coming from an early childhood development background, she joined Cotlands as a team leader who oversaw the activities of the playgroups.

For her, the scenery of the organisation had completely changed years before she became a Cotlander.

It was no longer centered on caring for babies who were close to their demise.

It was now one of the leading organisations in early learning development that prepared thousands of young children around the country for “big” school, free of charge.

“Because of the improvement in access to HIV medication and the new advancements in mother to baby transmission, we don’t have many children who are infected by it. It is now less than 10 percent,” said Mokgotho.

Cotlands CEO Monica Stach explained that the organisation decided to change its strategy when the high influx of HIV-infected babies reduced tremendously and the organisation experienced a general decline in HIV funding from sponsors.

The organisation then decided to adopt a new action plan in 2010 that primarily focused on early learning development through the use of toy libraries and playgroups, which was a burning need in South Africa.

Cotlands has since gone from helping 160 HIV infected babies to helping 14,000 young children across the country and creating employment for hundreds through its various departments.

“Although they are only run for four hours a day, play groups really have an impact on the children. We [Cotlands] carried out a survey and found that parents were so amazed by their children’s performance in their first year of school, all of them achieved good results in all subjects, especially maths and English,” said Mokgotho, who supervises the play groups in Gauteng.

Cotlands’ early learning facilitator (ELF) at the Turffontein branch, Phumeza Mogibili, said she initially joined the play groups in 2015 because she loved children but she ended up gaining more than she expected from the experience, including learning an entirely new subject herself, art.

“I love teaching here because I am helping the parents in the community who cannot afford to take their children to crèche and need a place to take their children,” she said.

Stach said: “This really is the best child development organisation in the country. If you see any Cotlander you will see that they just ooze with passion for their work.

“Often I stand back and I realise that you can never achieve great things on your own. It’s always a team effort and leveraging off other people’s expertise and passions and contributions.

“Some days I kind of feel the weight of responsibility on my shoulders but I feel privileged to wake up in the morning excited about going to work!”

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