Every year Audley's Africa team gives donations to the charities in its portfolio. They have just donated to Uthando, a Cape Town based charity which looks after the poor and vulnerable in the city.
Uthando raises funds for a broad range of community based projects in South Africa. Founded in 2007, Audley have been keen supporters and each year donate money which is raised by our Africa Safari team through a variety of innovative ways such as cake sales and pig racing — the pigs being mechanical.
Nonceba Family Counselling Centre
Money raised for Uthando this year will go to the Nonceba Family Counselling Centre. This currently has four programmes: after school care; counselling; child abuse prevention; and education and a place of safety (i.e. a women’s shelter and children’s safe house).
The centre opened in 1998 and is the only child rape crisis centre in the sprawling township of Khayelitsha on the outskirts of Cape Town. A true grass-roots community project, Nonceba (which translates to “concern” in the local isiXhosa language) was started after one woman’s decision to take action against the scourge of child rape and abuse in her community.
It began as a humble, one-room drop-in facility just over a decade ago and is now a landmark building and a beacon of hope in this largely impoverished community. As well as campaigning against child abuse and domestic violence through community education and awareness projects, the centre today accommodates up to 204 residents in its emergency safe houses for abused women and children. It also provides specialist counselling and expert psychological preparation for rape and domestic violence survivors in preparation for testifying in court.
In addition, the centre prepares and trains foster and adoptive parents of orphaned and vulnerable children (OVC) and runs an afternoon care facility for school-going children who have no parental supervision in the afternoons. Nonceba offers support in obtaining medical, psychological and legal help for violated mothers and children. Staff from the centre accompanies children and their guardian's to hospitals, the courts and through the often traumatic procedures necessary in the prosecution and recovery process.
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