They also assist child-headed households, provide counseling and have an after-school program and crèche on-site.

They also have two outreach programmes, one for teen mothers and a second for grandmothers raising their grandchildren. The Siyaphambili AIDS Orphan Village provides a temporary home for children affected by the AIDS epidemic in Langa Township in Cape Town. Mary and her two sisters were then taken under the care of social workers who found them a loving home at the Siyaphambili AIDS Orphan Village. After a bad spell of ill health, Mary’s mother was diagnosed with HIV and passed away a few months later. For six years, Mary and her family struggled to survive, moving from one shelter to the next and often sleeping on the streets in the bitter cold. With no job or money and little protection from South African officials, they found themselves in a refugee shelter. Mary, her mother and two sisters were caught in the middle of a political conflict by rebel forces and hoped that by coming to South Africa, they could leave this ordeal behind them and start a new life. This is what happened to 16 year old Mary and her family, when they fled to South Africa from the Democratic Republic of Congo as a result of the ongoing political conflict. Imagine running away from your place of birth, to a strange country thousands of kilometers away with little knowledge of whether you will ever see your home again.

Langa township orphanage south africa