Kenton Child Welfare plans to have own crèche
Annual fun run, charity shops also discussed at AGM
Child Welfare in Kenton held its AGM at the Peter Bennett Centre last Wednesday – a well-attended meeting with important topics discussed.
The meeting was chaired by Child Welfare treasurer David Malherbe in the absence of chair Anne Robertson who is currently out of the country for four months.
Malherbe welcomed those present and asked Pastor Charles Southey from the Bushman’s Family Fellowship to open the meeting with a prayer.
The chair’s report was read out by Malherbe who presented it on behalf of Robertson.
In her report, she mentioned they had quite a successful street collection over Easter.
“We have opened two charity shops which have started to tick over quite nicely. One behind the post office and one at Uviwe activity centre in Ekuphumleni.
“We are permanently looking for second-hand goods to be donated. Clothing, and any household items can be dropped off at the office. At Uviwe we do a special jumble sale once a month on pension day. We have done quite well, one month taking in R5,000. If we could build up to that every month it would be wonderful.”
“The annual fun run is always successful and I sincerely hope that everyone will pitch in to help get this under way as I am not here. Pam Golding, I am hoping, may take over managing this,” Malherbe read.
There was also a report from Child Welfare social worker Nomaxabiso Sojola.
“I started at Child Welfare in January, which means I have worked there for eight months. We are the small office here in Kenton-on-Sea, but have a lot of work because we service three communities – Klipfontein, Marselle, Kenton-on-Sea and surroundings farms.
“We focus on children from 0 to 13 years of age. We refer youth and adults who visit our office, to the department of social development.
“Our vision as Child Welfare is to ensure the wellbeing of the children to make sure that they are safe, going to school, loved, have food and are well taken off. Our future plans are to have our own pre-school as Child Welfare and a full-time aftercare centre at the Uviwe Activity Centre,” Sojola said.
“Child Welfare at the moment has 101 cases of placement of foster care which means 130 children are under our supervision. We monitor their foster care grant which is R1,000 for each child, and provide counselling to the children who have behavioural problems.
“As the social worker I work with two courts, in Port Alfred and Alexandria, when I do placement of children. So it is not all about visiting and counselling, I also write reports and submit them to court and we attend Children’s Court with the family,” she said.
A new committee was elected and the following community members that were present at the AGM availed themselves to serve on the committee of Child Welfare Kenton/Bushman’s: Mae Venter, Eugene Williams, Marianda Southey, Dave Malherbe, Jenny van der Meulen, Nokuzola Magqakana and Sivuyile Dzai.