Children are the future. They are the most important force for change on planet Earth. They all deserve a chance to be happy and contribute to this planet. Founded in 2005 The Olympian Social Development & Education charity based in Cape Town is committed to making a difference. Below is a broad overview of some of their main projects with many success stories over the years.

MORNINGSTAR CHILD CARE CENTRE

This is a day care and after school care, that we run from one of our Leaders Homes. The curriculum that they follow with the day care children is based on Curro Private School. The aftercare gets fetched from school and they are assisted with homework and tasks. Both groups of children get fed at the center. Some of the children that attend, come from homes where substance gets abused and this is usually the only place that they get comfort and stability. Some of the parents that attend our restoration program and don’t have someone to leave their children with, also take the kids to the center for day care. It costs R600 (£30) to sponsor a child at the centre.

HOPE (help our people eat)

This is our feeding scheme where we assist identified families in need of food. We assist them with the basic needs, but we also do a home visit to see the reason for the food problem. If need be we assist them to become self sustainable.

STEP-UP RESTORATION PROGRAM

This is a 8 week program for substance abusers. It is an out-patient program where we help people who are addicted to alcohol and/or drugs. They attend life skill classes at our premises from Monday to Thursday. During this program we take them for Equine Therapy once a week and we also have Councillors that come in to do the one-on-one counselling. Once they have completed the program, we either put them into hard skill training, or help them seek employment. Those that we feel are not going to make it outside, we put into rehabilitation centers.

We take 8 – 10 patients into each program and cost R2 500 (£125) per patient for the 8 weeks. This includes their stationary, 2 meals and a contribution towards traveling.

MAMAWETHU HOME OF SAFETY

The idea behind this project is to raise up more safety parents who can look after abandoned children. We have a huge need in South Africa for safety for our children due to the high volume of drugs and alcohol abuse. The law only allows 6 children to be placed into safe care with one pair of safety parents. This causes the parents to fill up the home within weeks after being opened. The idea is never to place the children into long term safety. When we remove the child into safety we try to work with the parent to rehabilitate and take back their child or children. In the case of us seeing that the parent cannot or will not co-operate the child will go into long term Foster care or even be put up for adoption. The state only contributes R27 per day per child towards the stay with safety parents. This works out to about R810 per month per child. This has to cover their food, transport, health issues, clothing and schooling. Although we cannot put a price on the children, we would like to get a minimum of R1500 (£75) per child and therefore aim to raise R690 (£35) per child.

WRESTLING PROGRAM

This is our program where we take the sport of Olympic style wrestling to the children in the communities to teach them a better alternative to drugs and alcohol abuse and gangster-ism. We have many success stories in this field as we teach them to dream again. They set goals and we help them achieve it. We have different hubs in the communities and the coaches are children that we started training up in 2005 and are now young men who are re-investing into the lives of others. Each hub has about 25 – 35 children who take part in the sport. The sponsor a wrestler is R600 (£35) per month.