“The door opened loudly, and I got a fright. Daddy stormed inside…
I had never seen Daddy so angry. He threw the spade at Mommy. It missed her, but its sharp corner hit my face, close to my eye. My face was covered with blood. It was sore; I screamed in pain. Mommy said I needed to go to the hospital, but Daddy didn’t want us to go. He still wanted to fight.”
Like this little one, the horrifying reality is that many children live in homes where substance abuse and violence are rife. They are not safe and often end up in hospital with injuries because of what happens at their homes. The socio-economic and environmental circumstances children are born into put them at an even greater risk. One in every three children in South Africa will experience some form of abuse before they reach the age of 18. This is their reality.
Children living in impoverished communities are particularly vulnerable and the scourge of substance abuse is often coupled with their reality of living in violent communities.
For a moment, imagine a child living in an informal settlement going to a communal toilet during loadshedding at night and is just a few metres from her home. It is dark with no lights at all. This young, defenceless child is at risk of being attacked and raped. Children who have experienced violence, neglect and/or abuse are seen at the Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital.
It is for this reason, that the Red Cross Children’s Hospital has identified child protection as a priority service to build at the Hospital.
We need your help so we can help the Hospital build the Child Protection service.
For Child Protection Week, we are raising R100 000 for our Child Protection project.
Your donation will help us strengthen the Child Protection services at Red Cross Children’s Hospital by:
- Training staff to identify abuse cases at an early stage.
- Improving referral pathways for vulnerable children
- Providing abused children with sustainable and holistic care on a multidisciplinary level.
100 % of your donation will go towards a project that will ensure abused children are identified early and receive the right care they need to heal.
