This Christmas we wanted to spread the festive joy by placing a toy in the hand of as many underprivileged children as possible in the Amaoti community. On the 28th of November we organised an event to gather presents together so that we could make this Christmas a special one for the hundreds of kids who are in a creche on our ECD programme.
The day was an incredible, all-round success with businesses such as Megapile, Donald Insurance Brokers, Nexia International, Platinum Consulting and Vopac coming in to wrap hundreds of presents.
JAM also made a donation that allowed every child to receive a pair of shoes and a facecloth with their toy. An abundance of toys also allowed us to distribute excess to other charities.
1442 presentswere individually wrapped and sent out to 1442 smiling faces in Amaoti. Thank you to every person who either donated or wrapped these gifts , your contribution has truly made a difference in the lives of so many.
It was that time of year once again, where excited children get to indulge in chocolate eggs of all different shapes and sizes. Hungry bellies embark on hunts to collect the presents of one of their favourite yearly visitors, the Easter Bunny.
This year, The Domino Foundation journeyed out to Amaoti to bless the children of this underprivileged community with some chocolate treats.
Representatives from Clifton with their collection.
Over the past few weeks Domino engaged with local schools, Maris Stella and Clifton to run drives in which the children brought through as many marshmallow eggs as possible. A staggering 3646 eggs were collected making it possible to spread the Easter spirit to the precious children in our Life Skills and ECD programmes.
The excitement on their faces was unforgettable and we thank every learner and parent for their support in this awesome drive that proved that a tummy full of chocolate is a tummy full of joy!
We are a transitional home – which means that the children are placed in our care temporarily and sometimes up to 3 years of age.
Legally we are only allowed to have a max of 6 children per property and per crisis care mother. (So if we have a house with 10 rooms, we still can only take 6 children)
We have to go through Durban child welfare and the Family Court in order to take care of these children. They are wards of the state. Which means we/our visitors are NOT legally allowed to take photo’s of the children’s faces while in our care
Sometimes the SAPS bring us children in the middle of the night or early hours of the morning, when they have been found wandering the streets or abandoned somewhere. They stay with us overnight once an affidavits has be signed and they are then handed over to child welfare to find a home for them the next day. Most times, the children will never end up back at Fairhavens.
All babies are seen by the District surgeon, go through the courts and then Child Welfare who will try to find a temporary or permanent home, if the parent can’t be found. Babies pictures are placed in local newspapers in an attempt to find biological parents.
Many of our children have been adopted internationally by Danish couples…who have to wait 3 years before being able to adopt a child and are given very little notice (sometimes a week) to come and take the child. They are required to stay here for 3 weeks at their own cost before going back to Denmark.
On Saturdays and Sundays, the staff would take all the children to the park or Gateway (and this used to be done in an UNO…until our Avanza was donated)
We belong to a network of Babies Home in Durban North and resource some of the homes with extra nappies, milk, toys and clothes. As we receive donations daily, we distribute any excess to homes in need. So your donation WILL ALWAYS go to those in need!
Older children understand English and Zulu and speak it fluently at the home.
Our toddler attends a local preschool and we are thankful to the school for this generous donation
The homes roof was literally falling in and at the end of 2013, we managed to raise funding through the generous people and businesses in our community to repair the entire roof.
We often have HIV babies, who do exceptionally well in this loving and caring environment. These babies are on ARV medication.
This post is part of the “Fairhavens 10th Birthday Celebration” campaign. To read more posts, follow this link to The Domino Foundation Facebook Page, where new write-ups will be posted every hour.
If you have any memories, comments or quotes, WE WOULD LOVE TO HEAR FROM YOU. So hop onto Twitter, give us a follow and send us YOUR memories of the home using the hashtags #sharedmemories #FH10
Read up on the rest of these posts in our #FH10 campaign:
As with every child, incredible moments and memories are shared between the children and their carers.
Tantrums. Colic. Pure excitement. Tears. Laughter. And love. Together these stories create your ‘BESTS’.
Your favourites. Your coffee-talk. Your memories that you cherishand look back on for eternity.
The staff and carers experience all these emotions and moments as they do ‘life’ with the little ones.
Linda Davis, our Crisis Mother who lives on the property, looks back over the photo frames of past children that line the walls of the entrance hall at the home and smiles as she looks from face to beautiful face.
“Our third baby was a beautiful little girl that was brought to the welfare by her father, because the mother upped and left as she didn’t want the baby. She was tiny and perfectly wrapped in a HUGE blanket to protect her from the cold. The tears were streaming down her father’s face as he handed his precious girl over to me. We found out later that she was so thin because the father did not know that he had to feed the baby during the night. He thought that giving her a dummy would help, but to no avail as he stayed beside her all night while she cried. My heart broke.”
I told him to keep the blanket so he could forever remember his baby girl…and then I took her and I hugged him.
She became my first favourite.
Once we had a baby that was brought to us that didn’t have a name. A lot of the time, if a child has been abandoned in a bush, or shopping mall or left outside a police station, we often don’t have names for them. So we named this particular little girl Jenny, after our founder of Fairhavens, Jenny Wallace. We only had her for about 5 days or so until she was placed in a children’s home.
Another beautiful girl, Jada Grace was with us from 2005. Back then Richard Mun-Gavin was an elder at COGS Church and when he saw her, he fell in love and eventually the Mun-Gavin’s adopted her. Richard is now the lead pastor of COGS church in Durban North and they have 6 beautiful children.
Coral Lea Davis, is Linda & John’s daughter and has grown up helping at Fairhavens and often running the night-time shifts with the staff. Blessed with a beautiful sense of humour, she recounts the humorous side of looking after these little bundles of joy…
I love the fact that most 2 year olds know more zulu than I do.
I needed a translator for Baby G because I did NOT understand a word he was saying.
Mom always goes for the underdog, the runt, and mostly the ugliest babies. Shame, they’re all beautiful but my mother loves a good underdog story
There has been many times I’ve been jealous of the children at Fairhavens because they get away with things my brothers and I didn’t.
I love the baby cuddles but not the vomit, I love the giggles but not the nappies. I love the first steps, first words but it also means the mommy and daddy don’t get to see it. I love that we get to have them for a short time and that they get a forever with a family.
I have had over 100 brothers/sisters over the years but yet I only have 2. Because they are part of the family when they are with us.
These past 10 years have been the best 10 years of my life and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
This post is part of the “Fairhavens 10th Birthday Celebration” campaign. To read more posts, follow this link to The Domino Foundation Facebook Page, where new write-ups will be posted every hour.
If you have any memories, comments or quotes, WE WOULD LOVE TO HEAR FROM YOU. So hop onto Twitter, give us a follow and send us YOUR memories of the home using the hashtags #sharedmemories #FH10
Read up on the rest of these posts in our #FH10 campaign:
“Hi Linda, its Durban child welfare. A mother, who can’t take care of her children, has just left twins in our care. Congratulations, you can come collect your 1st children this afternoon…”
#1: Birth
And so an excited and nervous Jenni Wallace and Linda & Coral-Lea Davis made their way to Durban & District Child Welfare. Little did they know that as they began their short drive to DDCW, these 3 world changers were beginning a journey that will impact an unforeseen number of lives.
And so on a clear, beautiful summer night, the doors at Fairhavens babies home welcomed its 1st occupants, two undernourished and underdeveloped twins. A beautiful baby boy and girl. The night had its uncertainties, with the baby boy being admitted to hospital and Coral-lea having to stay up all night with a colic-y baby girl. Flash forward a couple of months and the twins were well fed, smothered with loved and beginning the process of being adopted.
Fairhavens moves into the new house
#2: Growing Up
8th November 2010 marked an exciting ‘growth spurt’ in the life of Fairhavens. Having previously occupied a 2 bedroom flat at COGS church for a few years, to moving into a 3 bedroom flat on the same property, Fairhavens Abandoned Babies Home finally found a place to call ‘home’. Situated in Adelaide Tambo Drive (formerly Kensington Drive) in Durban North, the new house boasts 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a spacious lounge and an enormous garden for the children to run around in. The house also allowed for a separate granny flat for crisis parents, Linda & John Davis as they are required to be on the premises 24/7. Being situated in Durban North created a central point for the North Durban community to get involved. On a daily basis the house is teaming with visitors, volunteers, neighbours and donors who have come to spend some time with the beautiful children or have responded to any plea for assistance. You can read more about the exciting opening event here in: ‘New Home For Abandoned Babies’
The story in obtaining the house is remarkable in itself in that the bond interest repayments have been graciously covered by an anonymous donor!
100 balloons for 100 babies!
#3: Developmental Years
Reaching key milestones in a child’s life is fundamental to their development. One of Fairhavens key milestones was having our 100th baby pass through the doors and onto their ‘happily ever after’ with their loving family. This day arrived on April 10th 2013 and what an incredible day it was. A massive party was held at the house, supporters and Friends of Fairhavens attended the special occasion, and 100 balloons sporting the names of each child over the past 9 years, were released to commemorate the 100 lives that were changed through Fairhavens. As we are a transition home, our role is to raise, nurture and love these children while in the ‘in-between’ phases of adoption. We are legally able to house 6 children on one property and have 2 dedicated social workers from the DDCW who manage our adoptions.
#4: And the Cycle begins again…but better!
You always hear about vicious circles and big black holes that people find themselves in, and the cycle of abandonment is no different. The tragic stories you read or hear about in the news about babies being found in dustbins or down toilets at shopping malls, or left in the Virginia bush starving for days on end. We can’t even begin to imagine the place that mothers find themselves in, in the case of abandonment or even the driving forces behind such an act, but we know that we want to fight for the lives of the children that are being abandoned. We are in no way encouraging mothers to abandon their children, but we do want to give each child, who would otherwise be abandoned, a fighting chance at a beautiful life. Unfortunatley, the reality is that there is a high rate of abandonment in South Africa. And so in May 2013 Fairhavens installed Durban’s 2nd Baby Safe. In essence it’s a ventilated box with a flap where woman can anonymously drop off their babies. As soon as the baby is placed in the box a sensor goes off notifying the caretakers. The baby is then collected and the proper medical and legal procedures go ahead. The box is built into Fairhavens outer wall and will be ‘open’ 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. This design was initially developed because there was no governmental structures or social programmes in place to counter attack the ‘dumping’ of babies. In no way is Fairhavens wanting to encourage the use of the box to mothers who can give up their baby through conventional legal avenues, but rather it is a ‘last-resort’ method.
#READLOVESHARE
This post is part of the “Fairhavens 10th Birthday Celebration” campaign. To read more posts, follow this link to The Domino Foundation Facebook Page, where new write-ups will be posted every hour.
If you have any memories, comments or quotes, WE WOULD LOVE TO HEAR FROM YOU. So hop onto Twitter, give us a follow and send us YOUR memories of the home using the hashtags #sharedmemories #FH10
Read up on the rest of these posts in our #FH10 campaign:
We are thrilled to announce that we have a volunteer who has a PHD in Child Psychology who has committed to helping us for the next 3 years. She will begin by assessing each child in the new year and then develop a Child Stimulation Programme for the children at our babies home. This will help Domino effectively reach our objectives of meeting not only physical needs, but also cognitive and emotional needs to the children. Identifying speech problems, ensuring developmental milestones are met and assisting volunteers with age appropriate toys and games for they visit, will ensure that our children at the home receive the best care that we can give them.
La Fleur Landscaping, run by Yvonne Sharpe comes weekly to volunteer her time and attend to our garden! Yvonne and her staff keep our lawns and gardens looking beautiful, which allows the children spend as much time outside as possible!
There have been a number of phenomenal medical professionals who have assist us in our times of need. From weighing babies for urgent international adoption requirements, to speech therapy assessments and medical check-ups, we say a HUGE thank you to all who have given of their time and efforts to assist us!
A special thanks goes to La Fleur Landscaping, Beachway Medical practice, Anneline Jack & Candice Stone Speech Therapy Practice, Kwikspar Sunningdale and to all the volunteers and donors who have continued to support us!
Baby Updates:
We currently have 5 precious children staying with us in the home, after having 2 children spend some time at the home during the holidays. All babies are on the adoption register and we are eagerly waiting adoptive parents for them!
Baby News
From time to time , we have babies who are placed with us for a few days due to severe crisis that occur. One such child was a baby boy of 2 years who spent two days and two nights with us, while the Police could locate his mother to be arrested for child neglect. The police were called to the rescue by the neighbours, after his mother had left the baby alone in their flat for 2 nights. The child has since been returned to responsible family members by child welfare.
A beautiful baby girl, BabyA arrived on 5th November when Child Welfare had removed her from her family for the 2nd time this year. She remained in our care until the festive season and was placed in a children’s home with visitation rights as she is not on the adoption register. When she arrived, she was quiet, unresponsive, scared and would sit for long periods on her own and not talk or smile. Our hearts broke but the staff and volunteers continued to show her love and affection and by the time she left us, she was laughing, talking, playing with the other children and even swinging outside!
The #DominoEffects for 2013 at our babies home have been astounding, see stats below…
in the Amaoti community. On the 28th of November we organised an event to gather presents together so that we could make this Christmas a special one for the hundreds of kids who are in a creche on our ECD programme.
DOMINO EFFECTS 