In March 2007, St Andrew's Uniting Presbyterian Church in Rynfield, together with St Mark's Uniting Presbyterian Church in Daveyton and SKF in Boksburg, formed a Section 21 company, Legae Community Childcare Centre in Daveyton, to serve the needs of orphans and vulnerable children; especially those affected and/or infected by HIV/ AIDS. Legae is the Sotho word for “home”.

SKF is a Swedish bearing manufacturing company, with its South African head office in Boksburg and they provide most of the funding for the outreach project. The role of St Andrew’s Church is to manage the project, while St Mark’s Church owns the premises from which the project is run. St Mark’s involvement in the local community provided us with an entry into the area and “buy-in” from the community.

We operate a pre-school and day care centre for up to 50 children between the ages of 3 & 6 and an Aftercare facility for 26 primary school children. Attendance at Legae is free of charge and the Centre is mainly staffed by people from the surrounding community, who were trained for the purpose; thus helping people to accept responsibility for and acting upon the needs in their society.

Children receive 2 meals a day, as well as snacks and the occasional food parcel to take home.

We also provide the children with basic medical services (in co-operation with a local doctor), HIV education and resilience building. Several staff members have been trained in play therapy and child counseling.  

The pre-school syllabus has a Christian slant, but we welcome children from all faiths. Our syllabus is in line with that of all pre-schools aimed at preparing children for primary school and we also follow the proper Grade R curriculum.

Children attending the Aftercare section receive lunch and help with their homework. The programme also includes regular art lessons by teachers and volunteers, music lessons (by a musician from the community) and a computer skills programme.

At the onset of winter, we provide the neediest pupils with warm clothes and we hand out blankets to residents of the nearby informal settlements. Parents and caregivers of our pupils take ownership of the project by way of practical assistance such as washing windows, polishing floors and laundering curtains and linen.  This year, two of them have taken responsibility for our own little vegetable garden and we hope to soon be able to harvest beetroot and carrots.

During the July school holidays, we run a Holiday Programme with various activities and outings with the aim of keeping the children constructively busy and off the streets. We usually have close to 100 children attending our Holiday Club.

Some of the outreach’s highlights over the years include the following:

1.      Thandi M*, one of our first pupils, had cerebral palsy and was tongue-tied (her tongue was too tightly attached to the floor of her mouth, preventing her from learning to speak). Legae, with the assistance from an SKF director from the USA, arranged for her to have an operation to have her tongue loosened. Later we managed to have her enrolled as a boarder at Hembelihle LSEN school, for children with disabilities. The last time we had contact with her family, Khanyi was making good progress and was able to communicate by way of sign language.

2.      Rex N was a severely traumatised boy, who displayed anti-social behaviour and caused disruptions in class. He had no birth certificate, but was estimated to be about 5 years old. He had been beaten with a sjambok, throttled, stuffed in a rubbish bin together with a dog for hours on end and he was generally neglected and abused. We liaised with the Benoni Child Welfare and Rex was been placed in the care of the elderly woman who found him in this condition. She and her family take good care of him. Rex was a feral child in many ways and needed of a lot of love. He also needed speech therapy and psychological treatment. We arranged for an assessment through the Department of Education and Prince was placed in an appropriate pre-school facility for a year. He now attends a normal school, is proving to be very bright and still attends Legae’s Aftercare Centre.

3.      Tshepo S comes from a very needy home and has been with Legae’s Aftercare programme since the beginning. He is a pleasant, well behaved boy, but he struggles at school and at the age of 16, he was still at primary school. We managed to place Tshepo in Olympia Park Pre-vocational School in Springs, where he was admitted with a full bursary and he will be trained for a suitable vocation. The school also has an excellent job placement programme, which greatly increases his chances of finding a job after school. His taxi fare is covered by a donor. Since enrolling at the school Tshepo’s marks have almost doubled and his teachers say that he shows leadership abilities.

4.      Khanyi (12) and Thabo (9) are a brother and sister who attend our Aftercare. Their father is deceased and both the children and their mother are HIV+. No one in the household has work. Via Legae, St Francis clinic placed the children on ARV’s. However, their mother did not bring the children to the clinic regularly, nor did she give them their medication regularly. Several meetings were held with the children’s mother and grandmother; to educate and encourage them to comply with the medication regimen, but this was to no avail.

Thabo regularly missed school due to illness and Khanyi showed signs of becoming ARV-resistant. She contracted TB and was in and out of hospital with various infections. Eventually she weighed only 16kg. During this period, the mother had another baby and she was often away from home.

After various attempts to involve the authorities, Legae made a formal report to the local clinic and the Benoni Child Welfare Society. The latter removed the older children from the mother’s care and placed them in a hospice in Germiston, where they stayed for several weeks Once they had recovered, they were returned to their home. The court has made an order that they have to attend Legae every weekday to ensure that they are well and looked after. Both children are looking healthy and happy these days.

5.      Legae has a wider impact on the community with the pre-school teacher training that is offered at minimal cost on the premises on Saturday mornings. Over the past 4 years her students numbers have continued to increase as nursery schools in the area send their staff for training and unemployed women enroll in order to equip themselves better for employment. Last year more than 70 students attended the 2 courses (Basic and Advanced) and indications are that this will go from strength to strength.

At Legae we are passionate about making a difference to the lives of disadvantaged children by unlocking their potential; thereby paving the way for a generation that can contribute to society.

*Not their real names.