Teddy Bear Clinic overcomes all challenges it faced in 2021
PARKTOWN – Teddy Bear appealed to the schools to have open-air spaces and address the children for the outreach programmes in smaller numbers.
Teddy Bear Clinic for Abused Children in Parktown, which was set up in response to an urgent need for medical examinations for abused children, counts its accomplishments for the year 2021.
Shaheda Omar, clinical director at the clinic, asserted that 2021 has been a challenging year for the clinic due to the increase in cases of gender-based violence and families presenting with trauma.
Omar said that children have been the hardest hit. However, The Teddy Bear Foundation has stepped up and provided support to children and their families in a variety of different ways.
The help and generosity from the community and corporations towards the clinic have been tremendous and most appreciated. “Together we can and we have made a difference in the lives of many children,” Omar said.
Among the highlights of the clinic were making masks available to disadvantaged children, food vouchers donated by the South African National Zakáh Fund (SANZAF), the printing of the second edition of Children who Sexually Abuse Other Children, and children’s dialogue hosted by DSD national.
“Thanks [goes] to SANZAF for its ongoing support of food vouchers worth R400 per voucher, which is greatly appreciated. We are grateful to Food Forward as well for donating food to help reach out to families that have lost their income due to unemployment,” Omar said.
In addition, Omar highlighted some of the challenges the clinic has overcome, including continuing Hillbrow Medico Legal services. “We obtained prepaid data and devices as well as computers and phones to ensure connectivity and ongoing services to reach out to children and their families by providing online therapeutic support,” she said.
The clinic appealed to the schools to have open-air spaces and address the children for the outreach programmes in smaller numbers. They also partnered with other community-based organisations such as feeding schemes to run support groups with the children from these organisations.
“We implemented telephonic counselling again as we did in the first wave of Covid in 2020. This has again proven to be successful. This is a measure to ensure that children in need of services can still access services despite not being able to come to the offices for face-to-face sessions. This also reduces the Covid risk for both the children and the staff,” Omar concluded.
