Hamburg birth centre showered with gifts

CHRISTMAS has come early for an Eastern Cape centre that assists struggling rural women during pregnancy.

The Hamburg-based Busfare Babies Birth Centre was last week showered with a “bakkie load” of donations that included clothes, blankets and toys for the women’s new babies.

Busfare Babies Birth Centre is run by a Daily Dispatch 2016 Local Hero top-12 finalist, Karen Clark, who was excited when the centre received the load of donations from East London’s Motorland Group car dealership last week.

Dean Sanders, the owner of the car dealership, along with his 55 staff members, collected baby clothes, blankets and toys for six weeks. Speaking to the Daily Dispatch, Sanders said after they had collected the donations, they had no idea as to which charity to hand them over to, until they were told by the Daily Dispatch about Clark’s sterling work for rural women in the Peddie and Hamburg areas.

The Dispatch’s marketing manager, Ryan Megaw, who was touched by Clark’s work when she was part of the Daily Dispatch Local Heroes initiative, was instrumental in linking the two.

He advised Sanders to donate their collection to Busfare Babies Birth Centre because of the day-to-day struggles staff there were experiencing in running the outreach programme.

Megaw said yesterday: “As part of the Local Heroes, the Daily Dispatch’s objective is to continue a partnership with its past winners by supporting local heroes wherever possible.”

He said when the newspaper heard about the pending generous donation from Motorland, “We were happy to nominate Busfare Babies Birth Centre”.

Clark has been running the nonprofit organisation for seven years. She offers women between the ages of 15 and 55 a full maternity service, including free prenatal check-ups, birthing and postnatal services.

“Lack of vehicles in the area, women travelling over 60km during labour to access maternal care or waiting up to eight hours for an ambulance to arrive, were some of the reasons that led us to start the organisation,” she said.

Despite being short-staffed – they have only three people working at the centre – they help about 48 women a year.

Clark said she was delighted with Sanders’s generosity.