St Columbus Church helps Guild Cottage celebrate 115 birthday celebration
Guild Cottage administrator Faith Notshe says the core purpose of the centre is based on believing that all vulnerable people have the capacity to learn, heal, and grow.
Guild Cottage recently celebrated 115 years of existence as a non-government organisation.
Speaking at a celebratory function held at St Columbus Church in Parkview, retired Judge Edwin Cameron said, “I am proud that I am still associated with Guild cottage 25 years later because our country is suffering from significant dysfunction, corruption, disintegration, and collapse of State institutions. In the middle of that, we have a judiciary where the new chief justice has set up everything we need for a clean government. We have a renewal happening and at the centre are institutions like Guild Cottage which summarises everything that’s good and hopeful.”
Guild Cottage administrator Faith Notshe said the institution was founded in 1907.
“Guild Cottage was originally a home for orphans and children in distress, which remained so until the early 1980s when it took up its present function. And over the past 10 years, the Guild Cottage has also developed a programme that preserves, protects and provides counselling and intervention to the lives of children that have been through different forms of trauma and have been sent to the centre as wards of the courts.
“The core purpose of the centre is based on believing that all vulnerable and wounded children, as well as all human beings, have the capacity to learn, to heal, and to grow.”
Guild Cottage director Zelda Kruger said a question she was asked by a young boy in the early years of her career had helped her focus on her goal.
“When I began as a director at Guild Cottage, a 10-year-old boy asked how I would change his life. I thought the question was significant because it spoke to the organisation’s character and history.
“The boy made me think about what Guild Cottage stands for and why it was established. Another point that stood out from the boy’s question was relevance, we have to ask ourselves if we still do what society requires us to do.”
The centre needs donations, public service skills and volunteers. The public is encouraged to contact the organisation on 011 726 1172.
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