Social Development child home care receive accolades

The Gauteng Department of Social

Development received thumbs up for pioneering projects that support families.

These compliments were made by the United Kingdom Hope and Homes for

Children, CEO Mark Waddington during an interview on Power Lunch show in CNBC

Africa.

He outlined the importance of families and

keeping children in a family setting. Waddington added that institutions will

not look after children better than a family. If we can allocate money in the

familybased care as we have seen in South Africa especially in Gauteng, where they

are doing a great job like in Rwanda. It’s better to use the money to support families

than orphanages to secure the future, he said.

Waddington also warned against

commodification of children. When families are dysfunctional, those who are

affected negatively are children. Very often we have seen in many locations

child finders being recruited; going into families and actively persuading parents

to give up their children under the false promise of incredible education and opportunities.

There are orphanages where children are put under forced labour and some are

trafficked, said Waddington.

Gauteng Social Development strives to

empower families. One of the programmes is a homebased care model for

childheaded families that assists beneficiaries to access number of services.

This includes assistance in applying for identity documents, birth

certificates, social grants, referrals to health services and social workers,

when the need arises. The child care youth workers develop a relationship with

the beneficiaries and their families to assist with their support and

empowerment.

Source: Gauteng Province

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