Christmas is a time of giving: of faith, hope and love. We celebrate by buying gifts for family and friends, sharing a special meal and enjoying the holidays.

This year we're asking you to add an extra gift (or more!) to your list.

On the 25th November, Christmas will come to Crossroads and Philippi early, as we invite all our children to a fun-filled party. 

• Children from our clinic who face the daily challenge of managing a chronic disease.
• Children from our family strengthening team, some of whom have suffered abuse, others who are facing grief and loss of parents and loved ones and others who are caring for younger siblings.
• Children from our after school education programme, who have worked hard to improve their academics through investing time every afternoon after school.
  
  

We expect approximately 800 children to attend our event. And we need your help to make it a day to remember!

​We want to celebrate these children and we need your help! Please make a donation today. Choose one of the gifts or give your own amount in any currency.

Bra Joe is in his 40's and he is the only man participating in the Isibindi project at Beautiful Gate. Bra Joe is a proud father, children from the community call him Bra Joe. He has a children's soccer team where boys and girls play and he says the children are so dedicated to soccer that they even go to his house to fetch him for practice. Bra Joe started attending the Isibindi project with no knowledge he was the only man in the project, and when he found out, he had his doubts! He attended the project introduction and saw that the women in the project didn't treat him differently because he is a man. They are all trainees in the project together.

The trainees in the Isibindi project also recently received Persona Doll training. Persona Dolls are a creative, interactive tool used around the world in anti-bias work with children and adults. The Persona Doll approach offers a practical and unthreatening way to ‘unlearn’ prejudice, challenge discrimination and develop psycho-social skills. Persona Dolls  offers diversity training and materials on how to use Persona Dolls in anti-bias inclusion work, and a range of hand-made Persona Dolls. and everyone including Bra Joe were a bit skeptical at first when  they saw the dolls but as the day went by everyone started seeing the purpose of the Persona Dolls, even Bra Joe had presentation time where he had to demonstrate the use of the persona doll during class. We are encouraged and inspired by Bra Joe!

Beautiful Gate's Family Services includes providing access to grants, short term food relief, advice and referrals for 240 families each year to help them stay together and find long-term solutions. Every year we run a number of workshops to help equip parents, caregivers and the general community with important life skills and information. Read more about our programme.

SASSA (The South African Security Agency) is tasked with administering social security services. Beautiful Gate is pleased that they have decided to open an approval office on our site. This will further assist our community members to access the support they can get from government.

In 2012, there were approximately 3.54 million orphans in South Africa. This includes children without a living biological mother, father or both parents, and is equivalent to 19% of all children in South Africa. Many children in South Africa do not live in the same dwelling as their biological parents. The proportion of children living with both parents decreased to 35% in 2012. Twenty-three percent do not have either of their biological parents living with them.  Just over a quarter (26%) of all African children do not live with either parent. If you are interested in finding out more about statistics relating to children, you can read more here. 
Source: www.childrencount.ci.org.za 


The names have been changed to protect the family. The image is a stock photo.