south africa is no place for children

This week the Children’s Institute (www.ci.org.za) released their annual snap-shot of the state of children in South Africa - Child Gauge 2013. The sad summary: “South Africa is not a good place for children”. 

With inequality between rich and poor growing steadily, our children will face dire consequences in the future. Presently 58% of children under 9 years live below the poverty line with an adult earning less than R604 (55 Euro) /month. Of the 18,5 million children in the country, 20% are orphaned, 24% are not living with their parents and 740 000 are living in child-headed homes. 

Right now, Beautiful Gate is expanding our community child care and family preservation services into 2014 to reach more children in these situations. amazingly, half of all our parents attending our parental training are already caring for children not their own. They have informally taken responsibility for children in their street or community needing a safe home. They are the hero’s! But they need help. 

We are excited to be able to partner with them and we hope that together, we can make South Africa safe for children! Thank you for joining with us to do just that!