Doornkop Needy Children’s Centre (DNCC) was started in August 2002 by a Soweton citizen, Sipho Moumakwe who was inspired by South African President, Thabo Mbeki’s 2002 National Address. In this address he urges citizens to “Vuka Uzenzele”, which means “wake up and do something for yourself”. This is a life-long program that will try to eliminate poverty; nurture, love, protect and care for the children.

How you can help

We wish to secure full sponsorship of each child (see Sponsor a Child) at R150.00 (USD 23.50) each per month. We also wish to start accumulating funds to erect a proper crèche facility. We intend doing this with maximum transparency. We will provide you the sponsor with 6 monthly updates of how many children are receiving full sponsorship and how the building fund is accumulating.

We are most thankful for your help. Your support will change the lives of 160 small, innocent and very poor children. It will make a substantial contribution to the community and it will improve the crèche’s ability to do its job.

Sipho (a former policeman) was aware of the fact that there were many children in the suburb of Snake Park (within Doornkop), under the age of five, some abused, some abandoned but most just plain poor that needed some sort of crèche facility and care to ensure that the children did not walk the streets during the day without proper nutrition, clothing, education and safety. So he secured permission to use a church gathering point (a tin shack within 2km of the Community Centre) and with a team of volunteers (lady caregivers) now looks after approximately 150 children in one of the poorest parts of Soweto.

Doornkop is situated next to Dobsonville with sixty percent of its residents unemployed. Hard stricken by poverty, the pressure on parents or guardians to take appropriate care of young children is enormous. Proper nutrition, proper care and adequate pre-school tuition are simply beyond the average families means. The net result is that young children become trapped and the long term physical and psychological damage can become irreparable.
Doornkop Needy Children’s Centre will also monitor the children’s grants to ensure that the children receive proper nourishment and education.  We have established a crèche to render these services with a R50.00 donation from parents to cater for food and stationery.
A bakery is to be built to create job opportunities and vegetable gardens have been established.
Steuart Pennington CEO of South Africa – The Good News (Pty) Ltd “adopted” this crèche in May 2005 and since then has partnered with WesBank, Digipos (Pty) Ltd  a medium sized IT company and Rotary (Randburg Chapter) to give it and the children it looks after a chance in life!

To date we have achieved the following:

• The support of the parents and staff for this initiative
• Modest payment of the caregivers by Digipos (Appendix 1)
• The delivery of fresh fruit weekly by Rotary
• The supply of basic starch and tinned food by Feedback
• The training and certification of the caregivers by Cotlands
• Proper financial and administrative governance through the weekly reconciliation of the financial records and the management of a current account by Digipos
• Monthly meetings with Steuart, the project manger, Digipos MD, FD and operations manager, Rotary, Headmistress, Deputy Headmistress and Department of Land representative. Minutes of these meetings have been recorded.
• A memorandum of understanding with the Department of Land on the allocation of land for the crèche
• A weekly delivery service via Digipos
• The supply of token based electricity
• The building of flush toilets and a separate kitchen
• The random collection of clothes and educational equipment
• The establishment of a website to assist with sponsorship support for the children. www.dncc.co.za

We believe the key issues of community support, building capacity, proper governance and long-term sustainability are in place.