Today is World Adoption Day and today, Thandi House turns ten.
We do not take that lightly. Ten years ago, this was nothing more than one borrowed cot and a few baby clothes. Today it is a home full of children who are loved, wanted, and who know exactly where they belong. That journey, every single step of it, belongs to you as much as it belongs to us. But let us start at the beginning.
How It All Began
On the 9th of October 2009, ASSIST — Change In Action was born.
Pietermaritzburg headlines were harrowing that year. Dead babies found at the city dump, in fields, in rubbish bins. At just 24 years old, Rene started her first project offering counselling, childbirth education, and doula support to women facing unplanned pregnancies. On average, around 700 girls and women sought support each year, many of them young, frightened, and in desperate need of someone to walk alongside them.
In 2010, a local newspaper published something that shook our city a full photograph of a lifeless abandoned baby. It was the moment that moved the organisation to install KZN's first Baby Safe,a safe, legal, and anonymous way for a mother to surrender her baby without causing harm. By December of that year, there were six newborn babies in the home, as well as a teenage mother.
The Little Girl Who Changed Everything
Near the end of 2010, a baby girl was brought into care. She had been found in a sealed black plastic bag, left to die on a street curb saved only by a bypasser who happened to walk past at the right moment. It was love at first sight, and a pull on the heart that set the course for everything that followed. She survived the unthinkable, and in doing so, became a beacon of hope for every child who would come after her. It was at this point we registered an NPO to raise funds and extend their reach.
2012 brought two defining decisions. Mark resigned from his secure full-time job to follow the dream with his whole heart. Rene changed her degree from a BSc aimed at medicine, to Social Work to better serve the children and the organisation.
That same year, the organisation launched Hope House, a one-year pilot project providing a transitional home for mothers. After twelve months, every client had moved forward into a better life. The team later attempted to relocate Hope House closer to the baby home, but after years of applications, the lease was denied, and the property was ultimately vandalised and destroyed. A painful chapter but not the end of the story.
2014 saw the home finally revamped into what it looks like today. The old abandoned house that started it all became exactly what it was always meant to be.
2016 brought picnics at Midmar — and for many of the children, their very first experience of snow (well, ice... but in the Midlands, that counts).
2017 was a year of miracles. The whole family went on their first ever camping holiday, a tradition that has continued every year since. And after being stranded one too many times with a broken-down car, the home was gifted a brand new seven-seater by the extraordinary TTP a donation that changed daily life at Thandi House forever.
2018 and 2019 brought an abundance of new friendships, sponsors, and watching the very first children to come through these doors turn ten years old! The teenage mother programme started to support the young mothers has since produced teachers, nurses, office managers, fashion designers, and civil engineers. Our current teens are studying social work and education.
Ten Years Later, from one borrowed cot to a home full of children who know they are wanted, and we look back with overwhelming gratitude.
There is only one reason we are still here: you!
Every donation, every prayer, every shared post, every bag of groceries dropped at the door it all added up to this. Ten years. Hundreds of children. Countless lives changed.
We only get to celebrate today because of you.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
