About St. Martin

 

Inception:
The project started in 2002 responding to request from the church and community to provide counselling to the members of the church and visiting their homes. We discovered that many people in the community were living with and affected by HIV/AIDS.  The subsequent death of primary care givers left many children with no one to provide for their needs such as food security, clothing & psycho-social support. As a church, we responded to the needs of these orphaned and vulnerable children while they continued to lose hope for a better future. We operated as a pilot project responding to these challenges until 1st September 2005 when we were registered as an NPO. Most of our financial support came from Catholic funding organizations local and international. Our services, however, go beyond the boundaries of the church.

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What we do for the children:
Today, we receive most of our financial support from the Department of Social Development.  Our 80 plus caregivers and administrators care for over 300 children  and more families in the Kwa Thema, Kwa Zenzele, Jabavu and Witkop townships outside of Springs, South Africa.  We oporate two drop-in centres, one in Kwa Thema and one in Endicott (which serves the residents of Kwa Zenzele and Jabavu).

 

At our drop-in centres, the children recieve food, structured activities, academic support and opportunities to develop life skills and income generating projects so that they will have the ability to sustain themselves and better their futures.  Monday-Friday the children arrive after school, around 3 o'clock and stay until 5 o'clock.  During these hours, the children are fed a nutrious meal, which, for some, is their only meal of the day.  On weekends, there are no structured activities, but we do provide the children with two meals and allow them to use our grounds to play soccer, netball, tag and other games.  

 

 

What we do for the community: 

While the children are at school, our caregivers go out on homevisits, especially to Kwa Zenzele.  The Kwa Zenzele township is an informal settlement adjacent to Endicott, where one of our largest drop-in centre is located.  This township is one of the poorest in South Africa.  Filled with homes made from scrap metal, half of Zenzele is without electricity.  Most of the social ills that afflict South Africa can be found in abundance here.  Unemployment is widespread with a majority of the residents without work.  St. Martin's is the largest, and one of the only employers, in the area.  Most families live in poverty, unable to provide enough food.  There are many broken families, leaving orphans and teenage mothers.  The HIV/AIDS epidemic, which has been one of our nation's greatest challenges since the end of Apartheid, is rampant.  

 

Our caregivers are sent into the community to identify which families are deal with which issues.  Bringing back this information, we assess how best our organisation can assist these families. Some we recommend for foster care, disability or other types of grants from the government.  For those who have HIV/AIDS, our caregivers ensure that these receive and continue to take their treatment.  One crucial service we provide is the distribution of food parcels to families unable to obtain any on their own.