Jane Bradshaw

Eluxolweni Charitable Trust Child and Youth Care Centre, deals with issues such as child and youth protection, children in armed conflict, HIV/Aids, poverty alleviation, rights of the child and youth capacity building. They facilitate programmes and projects which bring relief and care to marginalised and/or abandoned children, with particular emphasis on to street children.

Eluxolweni aims to generate a new parental interest and awareness around the needs of former street children, along with their rehabilitation and re-integration with their families. Volunteer manager Jane Bradshaw started three schools in the 1990s: in Aliwal North, East London and Grahamstown.

The schools are all for both boys and girls.

Bradshaw chaired the Eastern Cape Working group for specialised education of the Provincial Education and Training Forum before the formation of the new Education Department in the early 1990s. Her personal mission is to bring change and love to the centre and she pleads for support of any kind, as they sometimes run short of funds to run the centre.

"If we could get businesses to commit to an amount that they can afford to give on a monthly basis, it helps us to budget," Bradshaw said. "It is very hard to budget when you don't how much you're going to have."

Regarding Mother's Day, she said it was something we should live up to all year long.

"Our children need to be loved, as some lost their parents and the day may bring back those memories," she said.

Jane thanked SPAR for every month baking and decorating a big birthday cake with the names of every child who had a birthday that month. "Every child that is born is a child of God," Bradshaw said. "If we really want to celebrate Mother's Day, then we need to work towards creating a society of responsible fathers."