Home of Hope, Cape Town, South Africa - for abused, abandoned, neglected and HIV Babies

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The Home of hope began as a safe house in August 2005 operating from the family home of Richard and Eleanor Brook in Table View, who together with their own children, took a leap of faith to provide a much needed interim place of safety. The reason for the establishment and existence of this safe house was to create a much needed support system for the local social worker and a place of safety for children who were:-

• Abandoned in dustbins to die
• Violently abused
• Raped
• Hungry and neglected due to poverty
• Victims of domestic violence
• Infected with HIV and AIDS
• Born bearing the effects of excessive drug and alcohol abuse during pregnancy

With this step of faith they were joined by other volunteers and the organisation was registered with their first management board members being: Dr Nicky Smith, Nicky Eastment, Richard Brook, Leanne Craye and Eleanor Brook.

However, as the project developed, research and statistics showed that the problem of child abuse was far bigger than what was realised. It became necessary for us to realign ourselves to be able to provide a broader and more effective service for the protection of children and not just that of interim places of safety.

The Home of Hope is a voluntary association, registered as non-profit organisation, registered with the Department of Social Development as a Child Protection Organisation, as well as a public benefit organisation, established in August 2005.

Please feel free to contact any of us at any time if you would like to know more about Home of Hope or how you can support us.

We currently have three main projects. To find out more about each of these projects, click on the link:

To find out how you can help us to create a promising future for our children, click here.

Our aim is to provide children with a home as close to a family environment as possible where a solid foundation can be laid, giving them the best chance in life to develop to their full God-given potential.

It is not always possible to find individual families for each child and with the challenges of the HIV/ aids epidemic facing SA, as well dealing with children that are effected by FASD (Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder), the Western Cape being one of the areas with the highest percentage of FASD in the world. We believe the solution to this is in families. It is only in a family environment where there is the love and care of parents, in which a child will be able to learn the values that will assist him/her in becoming a socially responsible adult, investing in future generations.

This is achieved by:
• Having family homes within communities.
• Not having more than 6 children per family unit with a balance of a natural age gap between the children.
• Providing a home for siblings ensuring that they remain together.
• Providing support, training, counselling and back up systems for our house mother or parents.
• Assisting and ensuring the implementation of each child’s individual care plan.
• Addressing the child’s therapeutic needs.
• Continuous monitoring and assessments of each home and the care of the children.
• Committed volunteers as an extension to the family support system.
• Networking within local communities to assist with the support of homes ensuring sustainability.

We have piloted a foster home: Ikhaya Luthando House. This family composition has been made up of a retired couple; children aged 3, 5, 7, 9, 13 and a 16 year old, the gender being even between boys and girls.

The children at the Ikhaya Luthando House are well adjusted and have a solid sense of belonging. They are happy and well integrate within the community, attending nursery schools, primary and high schools. They participate in sports activities. Of these children have therapeutic needs which are met in different ways.

Before a child is placed within the community home, we look at the child’s personality and their specific needs and how it is going to affect the existing family unit. We believe that if we are going to break the cycle of abuse we need to take special care to nurture the children we have and place the right children within a family as close as possible to a natural family unit.

• To purchase properties in other areas of need that are practical and comfortable with all the necessary space and equipment to provide a family unit as close as possible to a natural one.

"Free the child's potential, and you will transform him into the world."
- Maria Montessori

Our aim is setting up a school especially for children suffering from FASD. Home of Hope believes that children can be successful and contribute to society and their communities if given the chance to show the world what they have to offer, and are allowed to grow to their fullest potential.
One of the greatest challenges facing Home of Hope is that approximately 70% of children in our care suffer from Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD). FASD is an umbrella term used to describe the range of permanent conditions that result from exposure of the foetus to alcohol during pregnancy.
• Alcohol has a more devastating and longer lasting effect on children exposed prenatally than street drugs do.
• There is no cure for FASD and the child will not “grow out of it”.
• The Western Cape has the highest rate of FASD in the world and about 70,000 children are born every year in South Africa suffering from this condition.
• The organ most affected by alcohol is the child’s brain.
• The brain damage caused by the alcohol is permanent and is expressed in the form of inappropriate behaviour.
• Children with FASD tend to be hyperactive, moody, aggressive, impulsive and have learning disabilities. Typically they drop out of school early and often begin to abuse alcohol or drugs and get into trouble with the law.
• 85% of children with FASD are not being raised by their birth parents (usually they are in foster care or in children’s homes). They come from families that are often unstable with the child being at greater risk of physical abuse, sexual abuse or neglect.
• Most children with FASD are not diagnosed with this condition and their problems only come to light when they start school.
• Their learning differences and behavioural problems make it difficult for them to succeed in main stream school.

Home of Hope experienced this first hand when the children in their care started school. Although FASD is permanent and cannot be cured, the effects of it can be minimized through intervention. Successful intervention comes in the form of providing the child with a happy and stable home, and through education. Using specific teaching methods and techniques, these children can learn at their own pace and in time learn a skill or trade.

Currently there is no school designed to teach children with FASD in the whole of Africa despite about 7% of Grade 1 children in the Western Cape suffering from the condition.

• Purchase a small holding to set up a school within phases starting with a pre-primary school, 2nd phase a primary school and 3rd phase being that of a high school.
At present we are working from our offices in Table View.

The aim through the establishment of partnerships with other organisations and role players is to create a platform to distribute effectively excess items of clothing and household goods donated by business and individuals, ensuring the correct application and division of supplies, to enrich and assist those that really need it, preventing a hand out system with no purpose.

Many individuals, organisations and families in communities have excess items like clothing, household items, toys and food, and do not have a use for it. They do not always have a place to donate this with the knowledge that it is being put to effective use.

Through the local advisory committees, social workers and NGOs working in the poverty pockets, we have identified areas in which these much needed items can be used:

• Fire and flood disasters
• Nursery schools
• HIV / AID infected or affected families
• Foster families
• Child-headed households
• Support for families via social workers who have material needs and not necessarily from poverty pockets.

• Purchase a central facility to store clothing, household items and food donations.