At Nkosi’s Haven, all of our mothers and children (currently totalling approx. 140) live in total ‘freedom’. All of our children attend schools (in the bridging sense), receive all disciplines of therapy (play, remedial, occupational, speech, and hopefully soon art), and we are working on providing sporting lessons as well. Our mothers are encouraged to build their capacity through various activities, during which, if leadership and initiative is shown, an internal position will be offered (such as cook, childcare worker, matron, resident manager etc.) Further, we ask mothers to ‘foster’ our young resident orphans, hopefully providing for some additional support in substitute for the loss of their own mothers.
Over the past decade we have strived to become a prototype for holistic care for women and children affected by HIV/AIDS. While the energy and passion of our staff and dedicated volunteers has allowed us to achieve this for those residing at Nkosi’s Haven in Berea, and at our second site, the Nkosi’s Haven Village in Alan Manor, Johannesburg, we are in a position whereby, with additional funding, we will be able to expand our facilities and accommodate more resident women and children. Further, we have recently purchased a piece of fertile farm land just outside of Johannesburg. We are developing this site to grow organic food to feed an increasing number of residents, but also for individual capacity building, and economic empowerment through the sale of surplus crops.
Through all of the work we do, we ensure that our residents learn how to live with AIDS, not die from it. With this objective in mind, we have built a happy and energetic community where our children can develop and become self-confident, mature, and responsible members of their community.
For more detailed information on our different locations and projects please visit our Projects Page.
