Family Restoration Services
 
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The Thamsanqa Project

 
CWSA: Family Restoration Services which was started in 2005 to do parent training and family enrichment courses was faced with this question when confronted with a group of 12 children (we now care for more 24 children) from different families – living under dire circumstances:

  • They were orphaned, abandoned, abused, neglected, lived on the streets and many of the girls were raped;

  • Two of the boys were living on the streets and were involved in street fights and drugs etc;

  • Women from the community took them from the streets and gave them shelter in a temporary, overcrowded house;

  • Shortly afterwards the landlord evicted them as well as their benefactor;

  • They had no income;

  • In spite of this, the caregivers placed them in schools and contacted Round Table for help with school clothes.


Family Restoration Services realised that these children’s biggest need was shelter and safety and a place of belonging.


While looking for shelter for these desperate people, Family Restoration Services heard about the Department of Housing’s Special Needs Housing Programme and applied for a subsidy to purchase four houses for children with special needs. The application was approved on 4 January 2007.


All 4 houses are situated in Motherwell, a township established in 1982 and positioned between the industrial/commercial areas of Uitenhage, Coega and Port Elizabeth. The houses had to be renovated, extended and furnished.