But, uMephi\u2019s children aren\u2019t any children, they are between the ages of 0 to two-years, either abandoned, written off, or in need of a safe haven.<\/p>\n
Since the house opened its doors on 1 October 2009, no less than 40 babies have been given a home.<\/p>\n
The house, an initiative of the Apostolic Faith Mission Welfare Council, is one of 80 uMephi baby-houses countrywide, started by the non-governmental welfare organisation.<\/p>\n
At a certain age, the babies are placed by social workers in accordance with the Children\u2019s Act.<\/p>\n
In most cases, the babies are put up for adoption, which is a much more lengthy process than most would expect.<\/p>\n
South African adoption applicants, that have been screened, will be considered before international adoptions can take place, and they do.<\/p>\n
However, thorough screening of adoptive parents are meticulously done, and it may take a number of years before this process comes full circle, coupled with the vigorous medical screenings the adoptive child undergoes before being eligible.<\/p>\n
uMephi Middelburg is registering to house 15 infants, though presently there are only six being cared for.<\/p>\n
The babies have all the basic needs, similar to their parented peers, like formula milk, nappies, toiletries, medicine as well as physical and emotional bondage needs, being catered at uMephi.<\/p>\n
The building also needs to be maintained and in order to assure quality care to the babies, salaries also need to be paid to the caring employees.<\/p>\n
uMephi sadly has to generate its own operational funds, and are dependent on the support from businesses and the community.<\/p>\n
Those seeking to contribute towards a better life for a child, can donate to the uMephi Nedbank account, account number 1468135236, with the reference uMephi Babyhome.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
uMephi Place of Safety celebrated its fifth birthday on Saturday, with cake, sweets, cold drinks and all things children cannot get enough of.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1848,"featured_media":21229,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"hasGravity":false,"cxt_article_byline":"Gerhard Rheeder","cxt_disable_google_ads":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2704,2681],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21228","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment-news","category-lifestyle-news"],"category_labels":{"Category":"Lifestyle","SubCategory":"Entertainment"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21228","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1848"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21228"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21228\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21229"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21228"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21228"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21228"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}