Like Canada, South Africa is a vast country with a diverse population. We experienced this fact in Johannesburg. The sprawling city, South Africa's largest, presents promising opportunities and daunting challenges for its residents. Our distribution at the Rock of Hope Ebenezer Hannah Home for Children gave evidence of how some of these daily challenges can be effectively addressed at a community level.
Pastor Thomas and his wife Shirley founded Rock of Hope on the site of a former fruit farm in 1992. Besides caring for orphaned children, the organization houses the elderly and runs an array of businesses, providing income and work skills for residents, plus operating revenue for the organization. These include a bakery, sewing and pottery divisions, and a chicken farm. The center also relies on outside contributions: cash and in-kind donations like our bed kits.
Rock of Hope currently houses 120 residents of various ethnic backgrounds, including 58 children. There is a nursery, pre-school and aftercare open to resident and non-resident children, and even a fully-equipped mobile kitchen dispensing sustenance for non-residents. Private citizens and businesses hold functions at the home to feed the community and pay operating expenses for Rock of Hope.
We were impressed by residents like Julie, an octogenarian who is blind and has provided advice and guidance to the children for more than a decade.
Rock of Hope is living evidence of how a community can come together to serve its most vulnerable residents, young and old, and offer hope for a troubled world.
Team South Africa
Rotary E-Club of Eagle Canyon 🇿🇦 and SCAW 🇨🇦