Approximately 4 babies in South Africa are abandoned daily. The actual figures could be higher as not all instances are reported. Thankfully there are organisations in South Africa fighting to make women aware of their options and providing solutions to those women in desperate need. Two of these organisations are Impilo and Impact Africa.
The 5th of August marked a major step forward in helping these women when the two organisations partnered to open the Impact Africa Cosmo City Baby Box. The box is a secure and safe environment for desperate mothers to safely abandon their babies and secure for them a bright future. The system is linked to armed security services and a pressure plate, which once triggered will call ER24 medical services to the scene within minutes. This is the second box that Impact Africa have in operation, the other one is located in Diepsloot.
Rich Fransen, Impact Africa CEO, who has been working on the ground in Diepsloot and Kya Sands for several years, says one of the major obstacles to helping desperate women is the lack of awareness. Impact Africa runs awareness programs and presentations in clinics located in Diepsloot, Kya Sands, Thabo Mbeki city, as well as Coronation Hospital where most of the babies born in Johannesburg come from. He says a women never intends to abandon her baby and as such Impact Africa has a nine month period in which to locate and educate a women about her alternatives to abandonment or abortion.
In conjunction to the awareness program, Impact Africa also runs counselling classes and offers assistance to pregnant mothers in the hopes that they will be able to bring up their children in a safe environment and in the direst circumstances take a baby in to the Impact Baby Rescue center located in Diepsloot.
The partnering of organisations such as Impilo, Impact Africa and ER24 is a great example of businesses and NGOs working together to change and help South Africans. Impact Africa is currently running a project on Different.org for their awareness program and is one of the ways we are maximizing impact.
To view other great projects Making a Difference in South Africa, visit the Different.org project page.
Update: Click Here to see a video update from Impact Africa’s project
Elroy Renfrew :
An interesting discussion is worth comment. I think that you should write more on this topic, it might not be a taboo subject but generally people are not enough to speak on such topics. To the next. Cheers