Princess Alice Adoption Home (in Johannesburg) is a place of safety that is providing 24 hour residential care for 30 babies (ages 0 to two years) who have been abandoned or consented for adoption. The babies will stay with us until they leave with theiir forever families. We care for an average of 65 babies each year.
Babies in orphanages need individual attention, stimulation, physical and emotional warmth, as well as food and medicines to help them develop healthily at this crucial time in their young lives. We care for 30 babies at a time and our dedicated staff cannot give the necessary individual attention to each baby. The babies therefore don't bond with primary caregivers and are vulnerable to developmental delays that could affect their later lives. A dedicated 'aunty program' can change this.
Our Mamakhulu project (a Zulu word meaning "aunty" or literally "my mother's older sister") is a volunteer program that matches trained, mature women with babies in our care. The "aunties" will spend regular personal time with "their babies" to help them form trusting bonds. This will ease their transition into adoptive families. The individual attention and stimulation will also help them meet appropriate developmental milestones. The pilot project will start with 5 and grow to 15 "aunties".,
Adopted babies and toddlers will have formed loving, primary bonds from early in their lives. They will have had the necessary early stimulation to lay a foundation for their development in later years, both as individuals and as part of a family. On average, 65 babies at the home will benefit each year.
This project has provided additional documentation in a PDF file (projdoc.pdf).
