FOR IMMEDIATE
RELEASE
NATIONAL LOTTERIES BOARD ALLOCATES FUNDING TO COTLANDS
The National Lotteries Board (NLB) has allocated significant
funding towards several initiatives currently being
implemented by Cotlands ? and the first tranche has
already been received by the 68-year-old children’s
charity.
Cotlands Corporate & Trusts Manager,
Allison Gallo, says the much-needed funding will support
projects such as Home Based Care, the Johannesburg Sanctuary
and Paediatric AIDS Hospice units, HIV/AIDS training,
Cotlands’ Western Cape Sanctuary and Paediatric
AIDS Hospice ? and general improvements to Cotlands’
Johannesburg headquarters building.
The NLB will transfer the balance of
the allocation to Cotlands over the next few months.
Cotlands has also received lesser allocations of funding
from the NLB in 2002 and in 2003.
“We’re very grateful to
the NLB for this extremely generous allocation and also
to the many South Africans who participate in the National
Lottery and in this way indirectly support us and other
charitable organisations,” she says.
“We are aware that even the poorest
of South Africans play Lotto, knowing that even though
there is only minimal chance of winning, their participation
is making a difference to making this country a better
place.”
About Cotlands
From a home for unmarried mothers and a shelter for
orphaned children in the years leading up to World War
II, Cotlands has evolved into a multi-faceted organisation
that now reaches out to communities across the nation
of South Africa.
Although no longer only a shelter for
abused, abandoned and orphaned children, Cotlands continues
to operate on its bedrock mission ? reaching out with
every resource available to ease the suffering of children.
Now in its 68th year, Cotlands operates
its renowned sanctuary alongside a paediatric AIDS hospice
and nursery school for its children in Johannesburg,
as well a Home Based Care (HBC) programme in Soweto,
Alexandra and Tembisa. Adoption and foster care placements
are handled from the Johannesburg office, as are Cotlands’
Gauteng training operations, embracing courses on Palliative
Care, Home Based Care, HIV and Early Childcare Development,
Residential Care of HIV children and HIV in the Workplace.
Also in Johannesburg, the Cotlands/Chris
Hani Baragwanath HIV/AIDS counselling project, launched
in mid-2003, is believed to be the first of its kind
countrywide. Through this groundbreaking project, counsellors
have been trained to counsel HIV positive children and
their mothers/primary caregivers, as well as their extended
families during the children’s hospitalisation.
After they have been discharged from hospital they are
followed up both telephonically and through house visits.
Over and above counselling they are also assisted to
access necessary resources like hospice and home care
services, social grants, shelter for those who have
been turned out of their homes and anti-child and women
abuse services.
In KwaZulu-Natal, Cotlands operates
Home Based Care projects, training programmes and an
orphan identification and placement programme, while
the Western Cape welcomed the opening of Cotlands’
second paediatric AIDS hospice towards the end of 2003.
In the Eastern Cape, Cotlands has assisted
a community based in an informal settlement near East
London to establish day care facilities for preschool
children. As these children mostly come from situations
of extreme poverty, even in the cases where they are
not orphans, the day care centre needs to assist with
material needs as well as offering an educational component.
Cotlands’ role in this instance
is that of facilitator and trainer. Cotlands secures
start-up funding, recruits and trains staff, provides
them with the systems and resources needed to run the
school effectively, and equips them to secure donations
to ensure sustainability.
In East London a need was also identified
for a paediatric hospice facility, but than start an
independent project, Cotlands identified an existing
children’s home in the area that was willing to
have one of its units converted into a palliative care
unit. Cotlands’ primary role was to equip and
train staff to run this unit effectively, but we have
extended our involvement to include training on stimulation,
fundraising, HR practices and management skills.
Cotlands’ latest venture is a
nutrition project in partnership with CATCH, an organisation
that renders services to children in an informal settlement
in the Eastern Cape. The primary aim of this project
is to monitor nutrition of children between birth and
five, as it is vital that children are adequately nourished
at this stage, to ensure proper development through
to adulthood.
As it will not benefit families just
to provide food for their children, Cotlands employs
a trainer to teach families how to generate income.
Piggery, poultry, craft making, baking and food gardens
have been identified as the initial skills, but as new
markets open up, these will be extended. With the job
creation component, families have the opportunity to
become self-sustainable, ensuring improved care of the
children.
Because South African society continually
throws out new challenges in the field of caring for
children in distress, Cotlands is committed to monitoring
these changes and adapting its services to meet new
needs.
The most recent example of this pioneering
spirit is the introduction of antiretroviral therapy
to all the HIV-positive children being cared for at
Cotlands’ Johannesburg premises. It has been a
very uplifting experience for the team at last to be
able to put up a serious fight against the HI Virus.
For so long caregivers have had to stand by helplessly
and watch the virus claim child after child. Now there
is something tangible to offer them ? antiretroviral
therapy. Thanks to the effects of these drugs, many
of the little ones will be well enough and live long
enough to go to primary school ? and maybe even dare
to dream of their high school days.
Cotlands has also launched an orphan
care centre that will help the burgeoning organisation
meet the challenge of caring for the increasing number
of orphaned children filtering out of its Home Based
Care and Chris Hani Baragwanath projects.
Cotlands has a website at www.cotlands.org
ENDS
Issued on behalf of: By:
Jackie Schoeman Marilyn Boyd Communications
PO Box 14409, Witfield 1467
Cotlands Cell: 082 452 1495
(011) 683-7200 Tel: (011) 823-2206
Fax: (011) 823-3448
October 2004 E-mail: marilynboyd@polka.co.za
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