Hereford Wye Valley Rotary

1:54pm Thursday 25th September 2008

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MONEY raised at a Hereford carol concert is helping to feed destitute and disadvantaged street children of a deprived area of Johannesburg, South Africa.

Profits from the Hereford Wye Valley Club’s annual All Saints Church Christmas concert have been sent to the Hillbrow Rotary Club in the South African city as part of a joint initiative to alleviate the poverty of the children living ‘rough’ in their area and to assist in keeping them out of the clutches of drug, crime and prostitution barons.

The New Nations School, a Johannesburg school set up to cater for the special needs of potential pupils living on the streets, has been a life-saver for thousands of children.

The school, run with a minimum of government support, aims to give children attending a basic education, supplemented with food and sustenance. It also serves to keep the mainly destitute children away from the drugs, crime and prostitution racketeers that thrive in the inner city area.

Many charities support this school, but Rotary International, in conjunction with the United Sisterhood organisation, supply hot food daily and assist with homework, giving encouragement, counselling and support to the pupils.

The Hereford Wye Valley cash (which attracted further support from the Rotary Charity Foundation) will supply over 16,000 hot meals for the 900 children who regularly attend and further supplies of fresh fruit. The South African government gives enough money to the school for one slice of bread a day per child.

The children are all ‘street children’ who live in shelters and squatter camps – Twilight, Streetwise, Paradise, Hope etc. They are encouraged to attend school by being given one good hot meal a day, five days a week, during the school term. School attendance has improved dramatically because of the food and school performance has been immeasurably enhanced by the attendance.