As we celebrate our 30th anniversary since our founding back in 1993 we cannot help but feel amazed by the journey that this life saving work has entailed. While we were always committed to our vision of serving the little lives that needed us most, we could not have imagined the twists and turns that awaited us through the proceeding years and decades. One thing is for certain, with your help we have managed to surmount some of the toughest challenges that any organisation could face. We have so much to be grateful for and so much hope for what our future holds as we continue in our privileged position to continue serving those who need us.
In the past 5 months we have had a steady uptick in placements and new admissions in babies. You can expect some changes in the little ones that your receive updates on. As these changes take their toll, we remain keenly aware of the hard yet vital calling of our role in their little lives of "Loving to Let Go".
We could have filled a book with the news from the last year but instead we decided to keep it short, sweet and personal, as we know that this year has already started with its own set of challenges in many parts of the world.
So here are my 5 highlights:
1. On the right track!
I am confident we are on the right track because we have been blessed in a million ways that validate the tough choice we made to move.
2. Proud property owners
We own the new property and have paid it off completely!
3. Giving mothers hope
We are successfully building families in our Mother’s Hope program, and have received a funding commitment to accept two new mommies into the program
4. Walk this way!
We are seeing more visitors come through our doors, which means people are excited about our work as they have been in years past.
5. A growing village
We have found a new model of care that is working and means we have a tight-knit, happy community, caring for almost 50 kids in total!
After two years of a pandemic and the almost insurmountable odds against us to move to a more suitable and sustainable property, I’m sure you will join me in celebrating these incredible milestones that are tinged with signs of grace.
Reminiscing on the achievements behind us, here is how we are looking ahead:
1. Green village
We are blessed to be getting a sustainable infrastructure in place, from a solar installation and water recycling, to veggie farming and ongoing maintenance support. We are successfully building a village for the future.
2. Revive 1000
We have a new sustainable giving program called Revive 1000 that encourages small and medium businesses to pledge an affordable monthly amount of R500.
Like our Adopt-a-Cot program, this harnesses the power of collective giving, empowers SME networking, and provides reliable income towards financial independence for our TLC Village.
3. Healing trauma
We have begun running powerful Trauma and Belonging workshops to help empower people who care for children with difficult past experiences.
4. It takes a village
We are strengthening our Mother’s Hope and Strive to Thrive programs by collaborating with community members who can bring their time, talent and energy to our Village.
5. Non-profit, big change
We will be registering TLC Village as a non-profit company (NPC) in the new year, to set up a sustainable income stream that will help our programs continue.
We love and appreciate every individual who has helped us to this point of hope and anticipation! We would love to see you, so if you are able, please come and visit us!
From all of us at TLC Village, we hope that this year has had a blessed beginning for you and your loved ones. Thank you for making 2022 an awesome year, despite all odds. We look forward to showering many more blessings on all those who are being empowered through our efforts toward “Reviving The Village”.
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Dearest Friends,
Greetings from a springtime Johannesburg, which really is such a pretty place to be! Did you know that Jo’burg is the largest man-made urban forest in the world, with over 10 million trees? You simply have to drive through any of our treelined streets to experience all that leafy goodness, and when they blossom in Spring, it feels like a literal fresh start!
AND... GUESS WHAT??
We are giddy with excitement to share with you, that, due to a phenomenally generous donation, on our one-year anniversary of moving to the new home, we have PAID OFF OUR BOND!!! Providence is truly something to behold, and this unexpected gift came to us just before our annual AGM. We announced it to the board, and there were plenty of tears, goosebumps, and cheers when I told our faithful and loyal board members and management about this amazing news.
Watch this video here, as we announced the closing of the "Bust That Bond, Baby!' fundraiser to our board.
In addition to that, we are SOOoooo excited to let you know that we have added 6 precious baby girls into our nursery, the first new babies we’ve been able to take in for months. We were silly with excitement—you’d think we’ve never seen a baby before! Have a look at the cherubs, as they begin their TLC journey.
HERITAGE AND LEGACY
Last year, we found our way home after a harrowing and tumultuous time. The 24th of September, the day we celebrate Heritage Day here in South Africa, seemed fitting in providential timing as the day we made the big move. One year later, we are making plans to take the heritage of TLC Children’s Home, established 30 years ago as of next year, and turn it into a legacy of the TLC Village. We are casting the net wider, so to speak!
Our managing director, Pippa Jarvis, has spoken a few times this year of our six-fold strategy to reweave the social fabric of fraying communities by supporting and building up those areas that continue the cycle of poverty. Here is one of the last videos we recorded where she speaks of the evolving dynamic of programs as we work to refine and define our program offering as we work toward "Reviving the Village". You can find our organisational prospectus document attached.
Your support remains integral to the continuation of the important work that happens at TLC and we are so grateful to you for being part of this journey in helping us to succeed against all odds!
If you ever have and questions, comments or feedback we are always eager to hear from you!
Please also remember to rate our organisation of GlobalGiving! This goes a long way to improving our ranking and exposing the important work we do to other generous supporters like yourselves.
May you be blessed in the last few months of this crazy year!
Thank You!
Dearest Friend,
It has almost been 6 months since our last report and these months have been full of really amazing things, but has come with its own set of challenges too…
We are making amazing headway in creating clarity for our supporters to better communicate all our projects in a defined and formalized way. If you would like to get a better idea of what these are please check out our April Newsletter.
Your unfailing support, as our regular Adopt-A-Cot donors, has been instrumental in getting us through to this point. Standing with us in our time of need during the Covid-19 crisis, so that our work continues despite the hurdles we've gone through over the past few years. You have truly blessed us and most importantly you have blessed the vulnerable babies, children and individuals who rely on us.
While we are no longer directly experiencing the negative financial effects of the pandemic we are still in a constant and desperate struggle to make ends meet each month due to our governmental subsidy not being fulfilled for the past year. This has left a massive deficit in our funding and it is truly miraculous that over a year later we have managed to keep our doors open. But this monthly shortfall it is getting harder and harder to cover.
Every hurdle we overcome in the systemic and bureaucratic challenges of getting our government subsidy reinstated reveals several subsequent hidden hurdles not disclosed in the preceding process. As the time drags on our financial situation and exhausted team gets more and more strained. The hoped-for relief of our safer and more sustainable home is dangled before us twisted in the injustice of heartless processes and paperwork delays.
We have always resisted making requests for added support in our GlobalGiving reports. Today we have decided to break this informal policy and ask for your gracious understanding as we make our humble and urgent appeal for your help. Of course, we know times are challenging and the world feels scary on so many levels right now – but our babies, mommies and children are still part of this world. You have sustained and sheltered them in a joy-filled and loving space, removed from the desperate situations that brought them to us. You still have so many ways you may be able to help.
As we go forward we continue to grow and learn how best to build strong bonds early on to effect lifelong positive benefits on health, wellbeing and community stability. After 30 years of learning about trauma on infants and the consequences of unnecessarily long stays in the care system, TLC has improved our service offering to try work at reducing the exposure to trauma for the infants we serve by embracing the mothers who carry them. We believe our model supports multiple SDG's and will have broad positive consequences if together we can keep it going.
Thank you for standing by us.
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At long last, with the amazing support of many individuals, companies, associations and families, we have moved into our new home!
Here is a brief tour to give you an idea of what you have help us to accomplish through your dedicated support. Considering the state of the world over the past two years, this achievement is undeniably miraculous. We are blessed beyond measure and remain dedicated to our pursuit to provide the best for the little ones who rely on us.
Not only did we overcome almost impossible odds to move the Children's Home to a new, safer, and more cost-effective location over the Heritage Day weekend, but you and the rest of our TLC family helped us to reach our Heritage Day fundraising goal of R300,000!
Amidst virtual popping champagne corks and confetti, we were blindsided a few days before The Big Move in the best way. An anonymous guardian angel donated R300,000, matching the full amount we’d already raised from the fundraiser!
With our hearts full, our feet dusty from moving day, and our eyes leaky, we were overflowing with gratitude for the unwavering support from our village.
If you’ve followed our journey until now, you'll know that it has had enough plot twists to put a reality show to shame (though a lot more wholesome!) Through all these dramas and miracles, we still continue in loving commitment to our little ones. In total we've welcomed seven new little loves into our home and tearfully bid farewell to nine of our family as they left us for their forever homes. In light of these little lives that that touch our hearts every day, we are keenly aware that our work and our effort will never be in vain.
As we continue into the transition of the coming year we have still not received a single cent from Department of Social Development this financial year and it seems unlikely that we will before March or April next year. This is deeply challenging to our cashflow and has started to negatively impact funding appeals with other institutions as well. In this time all we can do is continue to call on those who care as much for our little ones as we do. They need us and they need you! And whilst some in high places may be quick to dismiss them, based on the missing paperwork they require to prove their worth, we won’t walk away. We had desperately hoped by now we would be in a position to ease up on these urgent appeals… but here we are.
We need you – we know paperwork doesn’t dim your view of their worth. So we ask you once more to rally your friends, families, churches, colleagues or classmates to help us fill in the gap where the system fails them. You can have your gifts amplified when you make a donation through GlobalGiving for Giving Tuesday on the 30th November 2021. The timeframe for having donations matched is quite specific so if you’d like to receive our 3 reminders through the day you can opt-in here.
Thank you for joining hands with us. Together we make all the difference.
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Dear Friend,
I hope you and your loved ones are safe and keeping well.
I'd like to thank you, our supporters, for reaching out from near and far since our last update and during the current state of unrest in our nation to find out how we are doing.
I wish I could give you a window into the many amazing things in our home that continue to inspire us and keep us going even through our darkest days: Like the first steps we've seen and first words we've heard this month, the two sweet newborns that arrived this week, and the two forever families from Europe that arrived today to meet their children for the first time after waiting a year!
It is a challenging time, adding to the many challenges we have all already been faced with this past year. On Wednesday night we were thrown yet another curveball and we are running out of ideas as the hurdles start piling up. I sent out this video appeal out on our social channels this past Thursday, asking our community for some suggestions that might help us out of this situation.
There have been many people asking for a breakdown of our costs which you can find here.
Your presence and participation in our community of champions, supporters, and cheerleaders is so appreciated. We look forward to the day when urgent appeals like this are a thing of the past. For now we journey on...
The long journey to our new home and the sustainability it will bring. We are so close and excited to share our progress with you!
We invite you to join us on Sunday at 13pm SAST for a tour of our almost completed new home. All are welcome and you are welcome to invite friends. Even if you can't make it live RSVP here and we will send you the link to the recording on YouTube.
"The true character of society is revealed in how it treats its children" - Nelson Mandela
If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me directly.
With Heartfelt Thanks and
Kind Regards,
Faith Abrahams
faithj@tlc.org.za | +27 83 382 0678
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