RE: DONATION OF CLOTHES FOR CHILDREN AND GRANDMOTHERS AND HELPING WITH PACKING AND DISTRIBUTION OF FOOD PARCELS

On behalf of children orphaned and made vulnerable by HIV/AIDS and their grandmothers, the Alex Aids Orphans’ Project would like to afford this opportunity to extend our sincere gratitude and appreciation to you, the staff and management of Proudly South African for responding to the call beyond compassion. We are truly honored to be the recipients of your generous contribution and touched by your team’s dedication and hard work during the distribution of food parcels to our orphaned families. Proudly South African, thank you so much for selecting the Alex Aids Orphans’ Project as a charity of your choice for the month of July and your team for spending more than 67 minutes of their time with families in need.

I would also like to take this opportunity to provide you with information about the Alex Aids Orphans’ Project and the services that we are rendering to the community of Alexandra Township.

The project was initiated in 2001, when the staff members (Dr. Wendy Vogel and Sr. Rose Letwaba) from the Alex/Tara Children’ Clinic became aware of an increase in children defaulting treatment and not arriving for appointments. Sr. Rose Letwaba took it upon herself to investigate the reason for this sudden high drop-out rate, she then discovered that large number of children have lost their parents due to Aids related illnesses and are cared for by their aged grandmothers who are supporting numerous family members with their pension money. In conjunction with this, the grandmothers are faced with the challenges of looking after their grandchildren at the point where they need care themselves. To complicate matters further, they have to deal with the loss of their children and bereaved grandchildren.

Main focus of the Alex Aids Orphans’ Project is mainly to provide material, educational, physical and emotional support as well as other basic needs to children orphaned by HIV/AIDS in Alexandra Township. The project provide food parcels on monthly basis to affected families, as they were on the brink of starvation, they also provide bereavement counseling to orphaned children, individual therapies to children with multiple or complicated bereavement issues, homework groups, social skills group, teenagers group and gogo/grannies groups.

We have six community care workers who are employed to conduct home visits to assess the needs of the families and in addition they assists the grandmothers to apply for social and foster care grant. One of our primary needs at the moment is to provide these families with food parcels. Despite the fact that we are aware of the need to create sustainability we are confronted with severe financial hardships the families are experiencing. It is impossible to provide children with any form of intervention if they are hungry.

Thank you so much for the support and we are truly honored to be associated with the Proudly South African team, you guys are great and Ayoba!

Regards

Diana Teffo
(Administration office)