Local organisation breaks walls for the homeless
Somerset Park based, I Care asks the community not give money to children living on the street.
![Anne Slatter, Gail Elson, Shirley van Rensburg and Kayla Neilon work to rehabilitate children who have taken to the streets for various reasons.](https://images.caxton.co.za/wp-content/uploads/sites/51/2017/06/22klcare-1-Large.jpg)
LOCAL organisation, I Care used Child Protection Week to highlight the plight of street children, as well as educating children about the torrid life on the streets.
The non profit organisation situated in Sometset Park focuses on transforming the lives of street children and has been running for the past 15 years. As a part of their awareness campaign, they do regular talks at schools and churches to raise awareness for homeless people. The aim during, Child Protection Week which ran from 29 May until 5 June, was to continue their mission to protect and educate as many children as possible.
“As it is Child Protection Week, our projects manager, Lucia Shange, lined up talks at schools throughout the week in partnership with various stakeholders that included the police and social workers as well as Epilepsy SA. Last week alone, Lucia addressed 4099 students at schools around the Durban area,” said Gail Elson, marketing manager of I Care.
The organisation works to rehabilitate children who have taken to the streets and who have become trapped in a life of begging, drugs, crime and sexual exploitation.
“We use our unique holistic cycle of, awareness,outreach, rehabilitation, education, housing, aftercare, and skills development and job creation, to make a lasting impact,” stated Elson.
I Care asks the community not give money to children on the streets, as this encourages and enables the dangerous lifestyle, and makes the important work that we do very difficult.
Make contributions through supporting their campaigns, making donations of clothes, shoes, linen and kitchen utensils for houses, rehab and drop-in centres. Contact I Care on 031 5726870.
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