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In a community where HIV/AIDS still carries a stigma, we have had to enter with gentleness and consideration. In order to gain the trust of the community and other local NGO services, we have begun with broadbased children’s programs. By broadbased we mean that there are no selection criteria, any primary school aged child from the township can come. At the same time we have said that we have a particular concern for children affected by HIV/AIDS and this broadbased program has provided us with the opportunity to identify those families most in need of intensive care.
We are just completing the first stage of our building which will allow us to have 25 children in the centre based Intensive Care Program. This program targets children who are directly affected by HIV and AIDS. By this we mean that someone in their family is sick or has died from AIDS. Over time we would like to be able to provide this service to 70 children from the community. To reach this target we will need to increase the capacity of our building.
We plan to build in two more stages, each stage costing R600 000. When complete, we will have built a children’s village. This will be a safe place where children orphaned by AIDS can play, learn and grow whilst remaining in their community of origin and their already existing circles of support.
In the future we would like to see our model of care duplicated throughout the Western Cape. We would also like to come alongside other care services to coach them in ways of working that are multi-faceted and consider the needs of the whole child. | 
