The Family Care Project
Project Beneficiaries
Children with complex long-term conditions who also need to attend multiple treatment and follow up visits
Children and families from households with low food security who are awaiting a social grant which may take two months to be processed
Abused or neglected children who are unexpectedly placed in temporary, safe, alternative care with caretakers who do not have extra material resources for the vulnerable baby or child
High public transport travel costs for regular check-ups (70 patients per month)
Patients with high-cost special dietary requirements related to their illness
“You have not lived today until you have done something for someone who can never repay you.”
– John Bunyan
The project we have decided to support until its completion is the “Family Care Project”. We hope to make as big a dent as possible into the R3.8 million target.
Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital provides medical care for critically ill and injured children from across the country. Exacerbated by impoverished and unsafe home circumstances, cases are complex and result in many little ones staying in hospital for prolonged periods, often requiring frequent follow-up visits. Alongside their medical treatment, many of these children require additional material aids essential to assist their recovery. These include a change of clean clothing and underwear, nappies, hygiene products, nutritional support and/or transport funds to attend treatment visits or emergency placements. The Family Care Project aims to support the Hospital’s Social Work department to provide for the emergency material needs of vulnerable patients and families attending the Hospital.
We have the tools, the power, and the presence to show care in ways that matter most to families in dire need of healing food, the means to travel to follow-up hospital appointments as well as the need for basic hygiene items to restore their lives and dignity, particularly those who have lost everything in a fire or who have extended stays with their child at the Hospital. A hungry child will take a meal home to share with their family. We have experienced hungry children taking a meal home to share with their family, putting their family’s need above their own. What if we could assist the family? What if we cared? What if we cared in the most practical ways? It might not take away the struggle, but it would shift a family’s focus to where it needs to be: with their child. A healing child needs optimism, hope, faith, and absolute conviction that everything is going to be alright. Your donation to support any child and family is not a handout but a hand-up.
With every hand-up to every family in our care, we are telling our children that everything is going to be alright! This short-term support for families trying to adjust to a significant change in their child’s health status is monitored with the aim to empower and help families sustain their child’s health in the long run. There are hundreds of families we see who need this hand-up when they are so vulnerable and unsure of how they will cope with the health changes for their child.
