Uitkoms Home For Girls is a registered child and youth care centre that offers non-discriminatory residential care, protection development plans and counselling to abused, or otherwise abandoned teenage girls.

On average, 50 young women are catered for each year. Some of the girls are pregnant when they are admitted and when the young women give birth there is often a high risk to both the baby and the mother. These children have little to no parenting knowledge and require assistance on how to care for their baby. At the centre, the resident housewife and social worker provide anti- natal care and a loving home.

Uitkoms prides itself in ensuring that the girls in their care are provided with a good education and that each young woman with is guided with information and resources, providing them programmes that will assist with their future and career goals.

Furthermore, they hold various workshops for arts and crafts, practical life skills such as cooking, knitting and financial responsibility.

To bring some Christmas cheer – through Hot Cares, Horn and Phillips Catering Consortium are going to host a special day for the girls where they will be treated to a fun and festive lunch.

Recently, Carolyn Austin got in touch with Hot Cares to share her story about a group of individuals who want to give back and make a small difference in the world we live in.  These volunteers work with and behind organizations like CLAW and Harties Feral Cat Rescue, by assisting with sterilisation of adult cats and kittens as well as taming, fostering, and homing kittens that are rescued.

They have also been able to set up and manage feeding stations at a few established feral colonies in local areas. And their goal is to establish healthy stable feral colonies.

The team recently stumbled into a squatter camp located in Sandton when they were looking for a lost teenage cat and found a number of families living in desperate circumstances with no ablution facilities and nowhere to dispose of their general waste.  Unfortunately, this has attracted rats to the area, which in turn attracts abandoned and lost cats struggling to survive.  Most of these cats are injured, ill and unsterilised – the feral cat population is out of control.  With the squatter camp being located on the busy street of Main Road, kittens and lactating feral moms are also being run over.

The team are welcomed by the residents, as they wish for assistance and for the feral cats to be sterilized. The volunteers have generously assisted the residents with food parcels and cat food We gave them some food and provided cat food for their pets.

The goal is to help this community establish a healthy colony of cats and together with the residents, the team hopes to achieve this.

 The volunteers need assistance with the following. If you are able to support them, please contact Hot Cares at hotcares@hot919.co.za

Find good homes for the 30 kittens they have rescued:

• Adopters willing to give these babies their forever homes

Find Fosters to take in any additional litters they will rescue:

• Foster homes willing to take in kittens or litters (with cat moms).

Continue feeding the feral colony:

• Volunteers to help with feeding the Main Rd feral colony on a regular basis

Cat food donations – feeding a large colony requires a lot of food.

Sterilise all adult cats in the colony – continue with a TNR programme:

• Financial donations to assist with vet bills – sterilisations, vaccinations, deworming and any medication required for sick or injured cats/kittens.

Assistance from experienced trappers

In addition, the team would also like to address health risks. The needs are:

• To remove rubbish and have a means for the residents to dispose of their waste:
• Sponsored skips to be placed near the squatter camp for the residents to dump their rubbish in and regularly be removed and replaced with empty skips.
• Incentivise a group to collect and remove the current rubbish dumps on the property.

Ablution facilities for the residents to use:

• Sponsored Porto Loos that are emptied/replaced on a regular basis.

Kwena Molapo Pre-school opened 25 years ago and is situated in the Lanseria informal settlement. It provides care and early childhood education to the children in the area and the pre-school also provides meals to the community.

Currently the land is occupied by over 500 families residing in shacks with over 2000 community members. This area is one of the poorest in Gauteng with 95% of its community members being unemployed. The area has no water, proper sanitation facilities or electricity.

Operating with limited resources Kwena Molapo Pre-school has made remarkable strides in the ECD sector but is in desperate need for assistance with groceries so that they can continue to provide meals to pupils and families in the area.

Thanks to the generosity of Eric and the team at Food Boys Hot Cares will be sending food items valued at R5000 to the school – making sure the little ones are well fed during these difficult times.