Local resident Kyla Cronje was involved with and completed the Young Leaders Programme and initiated the Dignity Rising Project.
In doing so, Cronje aims to renovate the Salem House, known as the house for the girls, and improve the living conditions of young girls at the Oosterland Child and Youth Centre (CYCC) in Despatch.
Sharing with UD Express, Cronje said, “The dedicated team at Oosterland is committed to providing a caring and supportive environment for its children but often has limited resources. It is a project I have adopted so that the little girls can have a beautiful home.”
“My pastor told me about the situation at Oosterland and helped me collaborate with the centre. Being a resident in Despatch, I decided to help out where I could,” she shared as to why she chose Oosterland for this initiative.
“My goal is simple: to restore dignity to these young girls’ lives. I would like to offer them a place that reflects the love, respect, and care that little girls deserve. As a mother, I would love to be part of something so important – to give them the support towards their emotional and mental development,” she added. “I believe that the environment a child is raised in has an impact on their development, and I want to make a difference in their lives as such.”
Annelie Morton, Fundraiser of Oosterland CYCC, shared her thoughts on this initiative.
“We had a similar project last year with one of the Uitenhage corporations to revamp the boys’ house.”
She added, “We are currently working on a project to revamp our CYCC. The centre was built in 1980 and very little has been done on the property ever since. With our limited annual maintenance budget, sometimes accidents happen when windows break, vehicles break down, and there is very little scope for beautifying the homes inside.”
“We keep it up to standard, like fixing leakages etc., but doing the cosmetic side of it is not in our budget as we are a non-government organisation, fully funded privately.”
Morton added that they started a new project called ‘Ikhaya-Elihle,’ which translates to beautiful home in isiXhosa.
“We initiated that with the idea of getting corporates and the community to get on board to sponsor houses and beautify them on the inside. Outside is not really a priority, but if the funds allow, we can reconsider. We specifically want to focus on the inside.”
The CYCC recently had a corporate sponsor that sponsored the smaller boys’ house, and Cronje is attempting to do the same with the girls’ house.
Sharing the needs of the CYCC, Morton said, “We have seven houses in total. One has already been done; Cronje is attempting to do the next, which means there are five houses that are in need. We dipped into a small investment that we had and have already redone the bathrooms of the homes at the five bigger houses.
“We renovated the whole bathrooms, removed bathtubs, redid showers, and toilets so there has been some kind of improvement at the homes, but only to the bathrooms of the teenage houses.”
She added, “We definitely need more investments from the community and corporates who want to make this project a success.”
Morton shared her vision of what the next five years would look like should this initiative be a success: “It looks like all these big proposals we were reliant on are making it more difficult for us to apply for funding. We have been struggling in that regard since last year, because of the application process and scope. It seems like their focus is shifting more towards Early Child Development (ECD) based projects. In the past, we relied on those proposals and funding, but now we need to seek help locally.”
The CYCC hopes to see more help from the community on a recurring basis wherever possible.
“We need people who truly want to get involved more than just once-off. We are trying to build long-term relationships with the community. People can come to the home to see what we are doing and invest long-term so we can help the children longer.”
Currently, Morton said, the biggest obstacle they have is operational costs and beautifying the homes.
She added, “Our recently opened charity shop is doing so well after UD Express wrote about it and that was a corporate investment. It didn’t cost us a cent, but that investment is now a continuous source of income for Oosterland. We are still in need of donations and volunteers for that. Any big donations, we can arrange to collect. Interested parties to assist the OJ’s Charity Shop are encouraged to contact us at 041 933 1120.”
Cronje said, “I want to encourage local businesses, the community that has the capacity to help out to do so, as this is a big project. Help can come in many ways, be it monetary donations, volunteering, or purchasing cleaning products etc. Anything that can help the CYCC save money.”
To find out more about how you can help and what the centre needs, contact Kyla Cronje on kylac@da.org.za or call 081 705 3595.
