Projects
Ntokozweni Village
Ntokozweni Village is in rural Kwazulu-Natal, about 2 hours from Durban and 30 minutes from Port Shepstone, outside the town Izingolweni, that falls under the Ugu District Municipality. The Ntokozweni facility offers a drop-in centre with a feeding program for orphaned and vulnerable children staying within the community, home community- based care, a soup kitchen, a support group, early learning centre & pre-school and an expanded residential care for the elderly. This facility serves a community afflicted with dire poverty and unemployment. The WTW SA Trust partners with the DG Murray Trust in providing support to this community.
Amy Foundation
The Amy Foundation (formally the Amy Biehl Foundation) is a non-profit organization that specializes in programs to develop and empower children and youth (5 to 35 years of age) in challenged and vulnerable communities within the Western Cape. Learners mainly come from the township areas of Gugulethu, Manenberg, Langa, Nyanga, Khayelitsha, Delft and Athlone. The WTW SA Trust provides funding to the Amy Foundation’s Youth Skills Development and Entrepreneurship Program that focusses on unemployed youth between the ages of 18 to 35. By providing soft skills and vocational intervention programs, the idea is to place youth into internships and eventual employment. To date, 852 learners have been put through the various programs, of which 80% have been successfully placed. The WTW SA Trust has also agreed to devote time and human resources in support of these initiatives.
RX Radio
RX Radio officially began operations on the 1 November 2016, under the wing of the Red Cross Children’s Hospital Facility Board and supported by the Children’s Hospital Trust. RX Radio is a radio station run by and for children operating from the Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital. It is the first radio station in the world that trains child reporters to broadcast from within a hospital. In the last two years, RX Radio has trained 76 child / young reporters (ages 4 to 18), of whom 67% are patients at Red Cross and 33% siblings or friends. For child reporters, participation in the program builds self-esteem, confidence, communication and social skills, all of which transfer into other spheres (e.g. school performance & career training). Audience research has found that for child listeners, the program improves mood, provides meaningful entertainment, calms fears about illness and hospital, and introduces positive role models.
The WTW SA Trust has supported this initiative and is playing an active role in fostering an environment where vulnerable children are afforded an opportunity to be exposed to learning, skills development, mentorship and growth.
Early Learning Centre
The Early Learning Centre (ELC) in Athlone has its roots in the Eoan Group – a cultural centre in the old District Six which closed as a result of forced removals and the apartheid Group Areas Act. The new centre was completed in 1969, and a working group which included the town planner, Revel Fox, submitted a proposal to the Bernard van Leer Foundation in the Netherlands to support the development of a pre-school program for disadvantaged children on the Cape Flats. The ELC today continues to provide quality Early Childhood Development services to the communities of Kewtown, Silvertown, Langa, Gugulethu and Bridgetown with an increasing need to service other neighbouring communities. The ELC also employs field workers who visit families on a regular basis and so extend its ECD services to communities who are unable to send their children to pre-schools. The school employs a dedicated group of educators who selflessly give of their time notwithstanding challenging conditions and a lack of decent remuneration.
