Mandela Day, 18 July in Cape Town

We had a fun day painting Fish Hoek FCS Unit with The Vital Foundation volunteers.

Below: The "Before", the blank canvas......

As you might know, the child friendly facilities at the police stations really make a huge difference to the hurt children when they have to disclose about the traumatic events around their abuse. Before we implemented these facilities, they were exposed to secondary abuse by people not trained to work with children. Now, they can feel safe in a room that is specifically designed around their needs - with toys, pictures on the walls, and a safe, sensitive person who will assist them in this very difficult task of talking about their hurtful experience.


Below Captain Orphen from SAPS Fish Hoek is painting a butterfly on the wall. She has such a passion for helping children. In the Vital Foundation Red shirt is Pippa Beaumont.

Below from left to right: Jonty Low, Pippa Beaumont, Captain Orphen, Captain Abigail Golding, Sgt. Smit, Monique Strydom, Chantel van Wyk, Christell Weyers and Seugnet Robson.

Thanks Vital Foundation for all your help!

Our children are our greatest treasure. They are our future. Those who abuse them tear at the fabric of our society and weaken our nation. --Nelson Mandela, National Men's March, 1997

We are back in full force

Since our Facebook site started running and was proven to be so popular, we have decided not to focus on a blogsite anymore. But it seems that many of you still wanted to visit us and read up more on our projects. So, here we are - back again!

From today onwards you will be able to reading more about our projects on this site - whilst our Facebook will have more on your questions and news updates. Please make sure that you like our Facebook site too if you have not done so already!

To introduce the MAB team to all of you:
Monique Strydom - CEO and also Manager of Western Cape Projects (and rest of the country)

Lizel Van Eeden is our project manager in Gauteng and also Mpumalanga

Christell Weyers will join us in the Cape Town Office as our Getting Conversation Going Marketing expert! Her appointment was made possible by the contribution of the Vodacom Change the World Project.

Then we will be saying goodbye to our trustee in the USA, Prof Lize Booysen - who added many valuable contributions throughout the years.

And we would also like to welcome our new trustees - Dr Corne Davis (UJ) and Mr Roger Latchman (Business Executive). We hope you are going to enjoy the time with us, but more importantly know that your contribution will have a huge impact on the lives of many children.

Last year Matla A Bana was 13 years old and our projects reached more than 20 000 children. We hope that in the next 13 years our work will help many thousands more and we will dedicate all our talents to give a voice to those who do not have a voice!