We have managed to secure the services of a therapist who is already working at the Parow court with victims. She will start on 1 March and will work 10 hours per week at a discounted rate.
Together with the NPA we have decided to help 5 children who has already been identified. These are the worst cases. In addition to that there is one little girl who was severely raped by her father. The case had to be eventually withdrawn and he was released due to her inability to testify. She will also be included in the group of 10 children who will be helped, as she was the motivation for this project. The remaining 4 children will be new cases identified by the court's social worker and prosecutors.
We have decided to do it this way so that we can monitor how successful early intervention is. We will use March to see what the response and attendance is (many parents do not have money for taxis ets - so we will be able to establish what the challenges are).
We will use the next two weeks to renovate one of the offices at Bellville court to be child friendly so that it can be ready in March.
We are also looking at the possibility of launching a volunteer program where we train volunteers in assisting the children who are done with the court process. We have identified a wonderful program that was designed specifically for this. We will run this separately from the above program as the initial cost for training and books are expensive. We will have to find additional funding for this.
We would like to thank the following sponsors for making this come true:
Grand West Casino
Dischem Foundation
Interkaap
Gordon Rademeyer
