“Give a child love, laughter and peace.”

NELSON MANDELA

Tour the orphanage and hear from our staff.

The Amajuba Child and Youthcare Centre is the one COFA project that does not reflect the careful cost benefit analysis that we use to allocate our resources. We created and now support the orphanage in Middelburg South Africa not because it makes long term financial sense, but because it is our duty as Christians to care for these children.

Our long time mission partners, David and Janey Hannay donated their home, built by David’s father Cedric, in order to give new hope to orphaned, abandoned and vulnerable children of the Mhluzi community. COFA funded and oversaw renovations. It has been approved by the government to be a Child and Youth Care Center, which enables children to be placed into our care permanently.

Seventeen children currently reside in the home, cared for by two full time live-in caregivers. Our recently completed construction will allow us to add ten more children.

 Why Amajuba?

Amajuba means “a place of doves.” The impis of King Shaka named the area where our Child and Youthcare Centre is located as Amajuba in 1825. It is associated with peace.

• Doves are often seen as symbols of peace, spirituality, hope, renewal, transformation , and love. They can also represent compassion and kindness to others during difficult transitions.

• A dove in the Bible represents new beginnings, new possibilities, new creation, and the presence of God.

• The symbol of dove with an olive branch has been accepted as a one of love and peace.

• Doves also represent hope - it was a dove which returned to Nowah’s ark with an olive branch to show the flood was over. They are symbols of hope, that the situation we are in will be over at some point. Doves are for looking and moving forward.

2024 Orphanage Funding Requirement

The operation of an orphanage is a costly endeavor. COFA is responsible for caring for these children and maintaining a safe and spiritually enriching home. In addition to general maintenance and overhead expenses, we incur costs to celebrate birthdays, take the children on special outings, and provide for their medical needs. Moreover, we want all of them to attend Bethel Pre-school or St. Peter Christian College, which adds the additional cost of private school education and transportation expenses. Although the government of South Africa provides some funding support, COFA expects a shortfall of approximately $65,000 that it will need to fund during 2024.

In order to ensure that it will always be able to provide the funds needed to support Amajuba, COFA has initiated a five-year campaign to raise a $1 million endowment that will provide continuous funding for these long-term funding needs. Click the buttons below to view the video and download the brochure supporting this campaign.

Why a $1 Million Endowment Campaign?

As the guardians of the children in our orphanage, we have a responsibility to ensure that they are healthy and that each reach their full potential. That responsibility adds additional costs beyond our regular operating costs. Thus, our endowment campaign will provide funds to meet our long term needs.

Health Care

The health care system in South Africa is underfunded and overutilized. We have relied on partners and donors in South Africa to minimize our health costs, but we must often postpone visits to doctors or dentists until funds are available.

Psychological Care

The children in our home all come from difficult family situations. We believe that we have an obligation to ensure their psychological and emotional needs are met. Thus, we would like to hire a Clinical Psychologist to work permanently with the kids, initially to assess and treat their mental and emotional state, and then to work on their behavioral needs. A Play Therapist may also add value at this stage as they can help children make sense of difficult life experiences orcomplex psychological issues, through play.

We would also like to hire a coach to help develop life skills that will enable the children to make informed decisions, solve problems, think critically and creatively, communicate effectively, build healthy relationships, and cope with and manage their lives in a healthy and productive manner.

Extramural activities

We believe our children deserve the opportunity to explore their talents and interests outside of their education. Therefore we need funding that would allow them to participate in extramural activities as they wish – music, singing, sport, dancing, horse riding, etc. This funding would also enable us to offer more frequent educational outings, holiday activities and trips that will also allow them to discover their interests.

Post Grade 12 Education

For many of our children, helping them reach their full potential will require providing them the opportunity to receive an education beyond 12th grade, such as university education or technical education.

Young Adult Shelter

We believe we are responsible for shelter after our children reach the age of 18. We plan to provide them a loving place to live during breaks in their university education or until they are able to support themselves. We therefore built a separate housing unit on our property for these young adults, thus providing them a place to live and the opportunity to be a part of the lives of our young children, and in some cases, their siblings, still living in our children’s home.

Staff Training

Our staff plays a crucial role in the development of our children. It is crucial that we are empowering and developing our staff with mentors and training programs.