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| SOS Mother holds her child at SOS Children's Villages Ennerdale, in South Africa |
January 24, 2012: Dressed in a pretty pink sweater and curled on a couch in her home at SOS Children’s Village-Ennerdale, in Johannesburg, Maria is proof of the good that SOS continues to do this year -- its 30th in South Africa.
Gentle and confident, Maria, born in Benoni, Gauteng, entered SOS-Ennerdale when she was nine years old, in 2005. She has four younger siblings, all of whom were taken into SOS care when their mother fell ill. Due to space limitations, when she arrived she was split from her siblings. A few months later, however, they were reunited and placed in an SOS home run by longstanding SOS Mother, Sarah.
Maria has been living in House 4 with her siblings -- Lerato (14), Lucky (11), Hester (7), and Tshidi (6) -- for just over six years. According to proud SOS Mother Sarah, Maria is a wonderful role model. “Maria's caring and nurturing character is evident in the way she takes care of her younger siblings and helps with household chores,” says Sarah. “She displays great leadership qualities and is growing into a wonderfully responsible young adult,” she adds.
Keeping Siblings Together is a Win-Win
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| SOS children work on arts and crafts at SOS Children's Villages Ennerdale in South Africa |
SOS does its best, in South Africa and elsewhere, to keep biological brothers and sisters together.
“I was very happy to be living with my brothers and sisters again,” says Maria. “We love each other very much and it is better that I am with them, so that I can help them with their homework and chores whenever they need me.”
Maria's shy brother Lucky, sitting next to her on the rainy day that an SOS chronicler met with them, says he enjoys playing rugby because it makes him strong. Her sister Lerato, in grade 8, announces confidently that she wants to be an actress when she grows up because it's something she's good at. She describes her relationship with her SOS mother as “special” because she is “the only one who understands me.”
Endorsed by Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu
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| SOS children play outside SOS Children's Villages Ennerdale in South Africa |
Maria’s happy life with her younger siblings is emblematic of the thirty years of investment SOS Children’s Villages has made in saving children’s lives in South Africa.
The SOS Village in which Maria lives, Ennerdale, was SOS’s first in South Africa. It was built in 1983 in what was then a "colored" township south of Johannesburg city center. Today SOS manages eight Children’s Villages and a slew of childcare and support programs for children affected by that nation’s HIV/AIDS pandemic. SOS family strengthening centers, sprinkled across the country, aim to stabilize families so that children are able to remain with their parents.
The family strengthening program in SOS- Mthatha in the Eastern Cape, for instance, has helped one granny-headed household of 17 children by training the grandmother to practice poultry farming and crop farming. On her earnings she is now able to feed her large family and send them to school.
Former President Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu are among the most prominent advocates of SOS Children's Villages in South Africa.
Historically, SOS Children’s Villages broke down barriers by caring for children of all races. SOS mothers in South Africa are from various races themselves. Before 1992, this mixing had been impossible under apartheid.