“Great news all round”

February has been a hot and busy but incredibly fruitful month in the iKhaya household. It brings us great joy to announce our new Coordinator Loressa Neale, who formally commences at iKhaya in March. Loressa is no stranger to iKhaya and has been involved with the staff and children as a regular friend and visitor, for a few years. Upon hearing that Loressa was taking on this role, one of the staff’s immediate response was, ’Oh, Loressa-the one who loves the children so much.’ Not only does Loressa already know each of the children personally, her heart has been drawn towards orphaned children since she was a teen. She is incredibly excited about this opportunity. ’’I am excited and love this place. With God’s grace and His guidance I know this will be a blessing for me and my girls and especially for iKhaya.”

Loressa, Kaylee and Bryce

In the same breath we would like to introduce Nishi Naidoo who is taking on the role of Personal Assistant to Loressa. Nishi has started at iKhaya this month and has been incredibly busy and is making great inroads on stocking, organising and overseeing various administrative duties at iKhaya, with great enthusiasm. Nishi loves the interaction with the little ones in the mornings and often takes a moment to engage with them in their play and routine.

Nishi and Melkom Naidoo

We have just been notified by our Department of Social Development that we have full authorization to increase our numbers of children from 15 to 20 in the new financial year! We are delighted by this news and the timing is impeccable. We are confident that with this amazing team of ladies, along with our Social Worker, House parents and Caregivers that we prepared for this imminent season of growth which awaits the iKhaya Family.

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Thank you for your interest in iKhaya LikaBaba and for taking the time to visit this site. Should you wish to partner with us in any way please visit the “Get Involved” page.

iKhaya LikaBaba is a hive of activity at the moment as everyone prepares for the school year ahead. The three ‘new’ volunteers along with the staff of iKhaya are excitedly putting the last touches on the stationery, uniforms and bags in anticipation of school next week. Seven of the children will be attending from this year and the younger children have been counting down to this day for a while, very eager to join the others.

Christmas was a special time for iKhaya as they celebrated with the family at the Christmas Church service and a braai afterwards with some special visits from families and friends of iKhaya. Thank you to those who so generously blessed iKhaya with groceries and gifts for the children and staff, and especially for taking time to come and visit and play with and read to these little ones. Some gifts came from as far as Canada, Germany, Holland and America! It is such a privilege to have faithful friends who love the children deeply and still keep open the channels of communication even as the years roll by!

Helga Budal was warmly welcomed to iKhaya and she oversaw iKhaya 3 for a couple of weeks which enabled our houseparents to take some leave and to travel to Zimbabwe to visit and celebrate Christmas with their extended family. We had the pleasure of meeting up with Tormod once again as he joined Helga for some time at iKhaya.

The children continue to be an absolute blessing to our Community as they meet up with and ‘bump into’ familiar folk in and around town. Their affection for one another and their deep joy and zest for life brings perspective to one, as we see their struggles and see how far they have come.

One little boy, after a sensitive process was re-united with his father in early December. He is doing well and sounds like he is settling into his family under the close watch of his father. Another little boy is presently on a 3 month visit with his family and is also settling well and has had a good Christmas as a family. Two of our little girls have also spent some time with extended family and we are expecting them back this week. In addition to this some of the children have had outings and visits to local families within the church and community.

We have enjoyed the benefits of having a qualified Social Worker placed at iKhaya from last year and it is very clear to us that having our Social worker committed to and working for iKhaya LikaBaba has meant that more children have been placed within suitable families, through reunification. This means more children will be able to be placed within the communities, from which they come, as extended family take on the role of caring for their children. This in turn creates more room for more children who are needing to be placed safely in iKhaya LikaBaba. Our Government – The Department of Social Development have kindly funded the monthly salary for our Social worker and continue to monitor our progress and assist us where possible.

In April last year we were privileged to be a part of an international adoption. Although many tears were shed, on releasing this little lad, we have had the joy of seeing his progress as he is settling into the new family and American culture. His Christmas was very different this year and whilst we all sought out water and shade and sand and sun, he enjoyed playing in the snow-a far cry from Empangeni’s Summer heat!

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Thank you for your interest in iKhaya LikaBaba and for taking the time to visit this site. Should you wish to partner with us in any way please visit the “Get Involved” page.

April has been a red letter month for iKhaya as we release one of our children for adoption, summer departs in style, many visitors come to iKhaya, maintenance happens, and we take out the trash.

And then there were Six
We said goodbye to Sphiwo and released him to his new family. They are from the USA but have a heart for Africa so he will be in great hands. Dad runs a software company and Mom, is currently living her passion of being a home Mom. Sisters are 10 and 8 and Brother is 6 years old.
Although there were many sad farewells the general feel of the time was a celebration as we rejoice in God’s ability to “place the lonely in families” Ps 68:6

As Autumn progressed the children took the opportunity to catch the last of the summer sun.

Living in the “country” has its advantages but it lacks municipal services. We have taken the situation into our own hands and purchased a trailer to take our waste to the dump site. This will also be a useful tool for ferrying goods and equipment.

 
This has been a month full of visits with all the volunteers hosting families and a friend of iKhaya coming all the way from Johannesburg to visit us. Jakes (Mancom member) and Mel (our bookkeeper) Olivier spent some time with us and chatted with Nonto and Theresa while their children Emily and Levi inspired our older children to ride their bikes.

The little soccer team took time out to enjoy their “bikes” and rest in the shade. 

James Millican of Genesis Building Contractors approached iKhaya with the offer of two days of much needed maintenance work. Among many other tasks window frames were cleaned and painted, the nursery and bathroom was painted and new outside taps were installed.

One of our little girls played in her first Hockey Festival and surprised us with her passion for the game.

We continue to run with the vision of iKhaya building wonderful memories and dealing with the battles of life along the way. Getting to grips with renewed roles and responsibilities of the caregivers and volunteers has been challenging but we are seeing promising progress. This child is a beautiful example of servant heartedness in our home.