IKhayalami Lethemba All Day and Night Project was on Friday swept by Operation Fiela when members of the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) and South African Police Service visited the centre as part of the Mandela Day celebrations.
“Our jobs are not only limited to protecting the nation, but also celebrating this day by helping children in our communities,” said Major-General Morris Moadiri of the SANDF.
Police officers and soldiers ditched the real Operation Fiela crime-fighting initiative and spent their 67 minutes for Madiba at the Soshanguve orphanage which doubles up as a day care centre.
They donated food parcels and clothes and cooked.
“This combination with the police can be seen as Operation Fiela because we have come together to help the children,” Moadiri said.
Ikhayalami was founded by Francinah Baloyi in 2002 and functions as an adoption and foster care centre, and provides child development services.
“I was raised by a single parent and we were poor.
“But when I got married things became better and I seemed to have forgotten how being poor and in need of basic necessities can affect a child,” Baloyi explained.
She said her child would return from school hungry even though he was given a lunch pack.
“I asked him why he was always hungry and he told me that it was because he shared his lunch with other kids at school,” she said.
That’s when she organised a few women in her community to help her cook for the other children.
“I was touched because some of the children did not have parents and came from child-headed families,” Baloyi said.
This evolved as more children came to the informal daycare centre.
“Some of the parents in the community also came and asked if I could take care of their children while they went to work,” she said.
Soon the two-roomed house she was using as a day care centre and office could not accommodate the number of children.
Her employer later gave her a shack which could be used as part of the facility.
“The shack also doubled as an office during the day and a bedroom for the orphans at night, but the numbers kept increasing,” Baloyi said.
At this point the day care centre was operating informally as Baloyi was merely caring for children in Soshanguve out of the kindness of her heart.
“We spoke to the ward councillor who facilitated the registration process for us to be a non-profit organisation.
“We don’t have a source of income, and keep the home running through donations,” she said.
People visiting the home were treated to songs and plays by the children.
Baloyi also took senior-ranking officials on a tour of the centre.
Pretoria News Weekend