Breath of Life needs help
Breath of Life is in need of donations for the children in their care. The GO! reported ( “Giving babies a second chance”, January 25 2018) that Restore Trust, established by the Stirling Baptist Church in 2009 and which Breath of Life is a part of, is continuing with its mission of developing innovative responses to social problems.
As a non-profit organisation, Breath of Life is dependent on donations.
“As a place of safety, we are only allowed to care for six babies at one time. We have found that there seems to be a bottleneck in the decision-making with regards to our babies’ cases, so we are unable to care for every baby that we are contacted about,” said Restore Trust director Andrew Rielly.
He said there was a pandemic at the moment with regard to the babies and children in East London needing intervention.
“I really wish there was a high school programme where life orientation actually taught proper life skills that includes how to take care of and nurture children so that we don’t keep having this terrible cycle of neglect and abuse.”
The organisation is in dire need of “cot sponsors”.
“An individual or business that can sponsor a cot on a monthly basis would effectively take care of the needs for that baby such as formula, nappies, toiletries, bottles, teats, dummy soother, medication and a percentage of the baby care-giver’s salary,” said Rielly.
He indicated they were always in need of infant formula and this is an item that was very seldom donated.
“The formulas we are currently using are Infacare 1 and 2, Lactogen 1 and Nan HR. Other items we regularly use are nappies, unscented aqueous cream, baby bath wash, Johnson & Johnson soft and shiny shampoo and gripe water.”
Rielly said there are different ways in which they raise funds.
They have a guardianship programme where an individual can donate from as little as R100 a month.
“We have money collection tins that we are asking businesses to host for us, we have our donation-based coffee shop which we have also started hiring out for children’s and adult birthday parties, kitchen teas and baby showers.
“Our Ithemba Charity Shop situated at 10 Philip Frame Road, Chislehurst sells any size clothing, linen and homeware. We receive a percentage of the profits to help us pay for rent, electricity and monthly bills,” he concluded.