About Us

The Durbanville Children’s Home fills the gap in service-provision for vulnerable children by using dedicated, professional services to support children in need of care and their families, with the ultimate aim of restoring them to a healthy family relationship.

South Africa is living in a situation without precedent. Never before in history have so many children been without parental supervision.

Translating into high levels of domestic violence, substance and sexual abuse and neglect. In addition, there are an estimated 3.7 million orphans, about half of whom have lost one or both parents to AIDS; and 150,000 children are believed to be living in child-headed households.

The South African reality is that millions of children are in need of support and care. One of the most pressing questions our country faces is how to provide a response that can be both loving and sufficiently large in scale.

The Durbanville Children’s Home fills the gap in service-provision for vulnerable children by using dedicated, professional services to support children in need of care and their families, with the ultimate aim of restoring them to a healthy family relationship.

The Home is situated in the Northern Suburbs of Cape Town. The intake of children falls within a 100km radius of Durbanville, which includes farms, informal settlements, squatter camps and towns. The Durbanville Children’s Home is presently caring for 144 children between the ages of 2-18 years.

The Home is one of the oldest children’s homes in South Africa. Its proud history spanning 136 years attests to its successful record of accomplishment in caring for vulnerable children.

If children are not placed in institutions such as the Children’s Home, the probability of them ending up on the streets where they are exposed to drug abuse, gang violence, poverty, crime, etc. would be increased.

These negative influences also increase the risk of potential criminal behaviour and continuing the cycle of learned behaviours in their adult lives, such as abuse and neglect, towards their own children. This is likely to have an impact on the social economic growth of our country.

Durbanville Children’s Home is a programme of BADISA, a church-based non-governmental welfare organisation. BADISA provides professional assistance as well as a policy and guidelines for the Home, ensuring that the Home meets the ever-changing needs of children in need of care and safety. Durbanville Children’s Home is also registered with the Department of Social Development and is therefore subject to governmental policies and principles.

Beneficiaries

The criteria for children to be included in the Programme at the Durbanville Children’s Home are:

• Vulnerable children removed from their homes by court order issued in accordance with the Children’s Act.
• Children below the age of 18 or still at school (this means that if children are older than 18, but still at school, they also qualify to be included in the Programme until they complete Grade 12).

The children in our Home come from environments that are not conducive to nurturing and growing well-grounded, well-adjusted and spirited young people. Instead, their primary caregivers are often absent; leaving the children exposed to a number of abuses, including emotional, psychological and physical abuse.

Our Children