We have chosen to support Lulisandla Kumntwana, a charity close to our hearts as they are based in the rural area of South Africa where Martyn grew up. The charity does great work supporting the thousands of vulnerable orphans and children in the area, which is often the result of HIV and AIDs.

Below are a few more words from their own website, explaining what they do. The charity was established and continues to be run by Martyn's mother, Rachel Fredlund.

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Lulisandla Kumntwana means 'reach out to the child'. We are a community based outreach project of Mseleni Children’s Home, working with vulnerable children in Umkhanyakude in Kwa-Zulu Natal, South Africa.

The foundation of the project is the network of Family Support Teams, made up of Christians drawn from local churches. 56 teams with about 350 volunteers visit orphan families on a regular basis & offer practical, social emotional and spiritual help. Four coordinators work with these teams, meeting with them once a month for feedback, planning, and praying.

The program is a registered fostering agency, which means that children are assisted to access birth and death documents and IDs, foster parents are screened, home situations investigated, cases taken to the Children’s Court, children are placed in foster care, and then assisted to apply for the foster child grant. Foster placements are supervised.

Amongst many other monthly activities the program offers psycho-social support workshops which help orphans to deal with the emotional trauma of losing their parents. The workshops also give life skills training. Foster parents workshops take place as well as memory box work with the orphans and a support group for HIV+ teens.

The program works closely with the local schools to further care for the needs of the orphans as well as identifying new orphans. After School Clubs offer orphans in the school help with homework, games and crafts and life skills. Five youth clubs run a weekly program for youth in general. Some of these clubs have started income generating projects.

Please see http://www.mseleni.co.za/aidsorphans/index.htm to read more.