COVID-19 2020
The Corona Virus, which caused South Africa to go into National Lockdown, along with the rest of the world – has had an even bigger impact within the disability sector than other sectors. Sinethemba closed its doors on the 18th March 2020 along with other schools on the instruction of President Cyril Ramaphosa. Unfortunately due to the high risk that our children face with the virus, we are currently still closed and are eagerly waiting for an opening date from Department of Social Development.
This has been a very difficult time for all of our children’s families and we at Sinethemba have been doing everything within our means to support them.
Before Lockdown, we were very blessed to have a substantial donation made to the Association and with this donor’s permission, we have been supplying each family with a R400 food voucher / food parcel every three weeks to help alleviate some of the pressure with not being able to work. To date we have had 7 food voucher drives where 67 families received food parcels/vouchers with each delivery.
We are also very grateful to the Fish Hoek Lions Club that continued to support us during this challenging time by dropping off food supplies and masks for the children and adults of Sinethemba.
We were so grateful to the Clothing Guild for their annual donation of clothes and blankets for the families of Sinethemba. This was well needed during this Winter and the Clothing Guild Donation was distributed during one of our food voucher distributions.
Behind the scenes, we set up different Whatsapp groups to keep in communication with all of our parents and clients. Our Programme Implementers and Carers have been sending therapy programs and creative activities to the parents via Whatsapp once a week to assist with activities for their children whilst they are at home. We have also undertaken weekly home visit to some of our children to assess whether there are any additional needs that we can assist with.
On the admin side, we have been working very hard with setting up all the requirements to comply with “Covid – 19’s Standard Operating Procedures”. Strict Policies and Procedures are now in place for when we are allowed to open. We also continue to work on the normal administrative tasks that is required from our various funders and the Departments that keeps Sinethemba running throughout the year.
We are truly grateful to all our donors and funders who have continued to support us during this period. We are really looking forward to receiving a date that we can re-open. We know that the children are anxious to return along with the parents and especially the staff.
On a very sad note: In August we were informed that one of our boys, Jack Larter passed away. This was a huge blow to us all and even though he had only been with us for a short period, he had touch each of our hearts. Our love and support goes out to his family.
