The Ikhayalethu Home

The Lounge
The first phase of IKHAYALETHU HOME was officially inaugurated on 13th November 1999.  During it's erection, the building was being referred to as "Ikhayalethu" by the children who were living in the Greenhill prefabricated temporary shelter and who were later moved to the new premises This Zulu word means "Our Home", a description so appropriate that it became the name of the new project..  

This home has the capacity to accommodate twenty children and is used as a long term residential care center for children.   Children who, in the view of the authorities are is in need of long term residential care and protection, are placed here in terms of the Child Care Act.

The philosophy of House of Shalom is based on the belief that the children it cares for should feel at home and that they should therefore be developed naturally within a family.  Having this in mind, volunteer single mothers were trained as Child Care Workers.  The children attend formal schooling and are also subject to programs in the home.  Family therapy services are available and natural child/parent interaction is also encouraged by inviting the parents to weekly visits to the home at set times.  This will help the youths in becoming more actively involved in educational activities.

The ultimate goal of Ikhayalethu is to reunite the children with their respective family in collaboration with Courts and local Child Welfare Organisations

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As explained elsewhere in this website, a dilapidated building situated at Greenhills, was used until December 1999 as a transitional shelter for up to fifteen boys aged six to fifteen who came to the shelter seeking assistance and accommodation.  Due to its age and condition, the building became a health hazard to the children and the organisation decided to close it down.  The building eventually burnt down on the 12 February 2000.  It was time to establish a new Shelter.

Alternative accommodation was then found at a house for sale situated in Brackenham and owned by a local medical practitioner.   He agreed in making it available to the organisation as a temporary measure to accommodate the children who had recently been forced out of the house at Greenhills, until such time as a suitable buyer was found.  The children moved into these new premises on 26th June 2000.  This new shelter became known as "The Siyabonga Shelter", "siyabonga" being a Zulu word simply meaning "thank you".

As was to be expected, nearly two years later, this building was sold to a third party.   The new owner gave notice to the organisation that the premises were be vacated by the middle of June 2002, at which time it was decided to relocate the Siyabonga Shelter to the Ikhayalethu Children's Home building which was to be completed by the end of June 2002 with the help of the public, industries, businesses and the local community on whom the organisation depends

Today the Siyabonga Shelter is located on the same premises the Ikhayalethu children’s home occupies. The Shelter accommodates twenty (20) children in residential care. The Siyabonga Shelter functions very much in the same way as the Ikhayalethu Children’s Home.  

At the shelter, the children are involved in group work programs which include group discussions, debates, role-playing and presentations. Counseling sessions to the children usually follow.  These include structural counseling, crisis counseling, trauma counseling and individual counseling.

The first Siyabonga Shelter

 

 

This is a new project the House of Shalom has initiated in the Nseleni Township. The main reason behind it was that young children between the ages of 2 and 5 were left at home with no adult supervision while their parents were at work in the outlying areas of Nseleni.  Very often these young children were victims of child abuse.  This usually occured when the older children were abusing and bullying the younger ones.  In view of this, the organisation decided to take action and start a Day Care Centre where, at a nominal fee paid by the parents, the children can be looked after.
At this stage, the organization hopes get more community members involved in this undertaking as its success depends on this.