Women who fled abusive homes in lockdown have filled Krugersdorp shelter to capacity
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A shelter for women and children’s shelter in Krugersdorp that has been filled to capacity since the lockdown started has launched a crowdfunding campaign to help provide resources for women escaping abuse. Picture: Pixabay.
Johannesburg - A shelter for women and children’s shelter in Krugersdorp that has been filled to capacity since the lockdown started has launched a crowdfunding campaign to help provide resources for women escaping abuse.
The Cradle of Hope is a non-profit organisation that cares for, protects and rehabilitates abused and vulnerable women with their children, as well as traumatised and troubled teenage girls. The organisation provides a safe home, all their basic needs as well as life coaching, inner healing, life skills, spiritual upliftment, skills development and addiction and stress recovery.
The Cradle of Hope has started a crowdfunding campaign on BackaBuddy to help provide resources to women escaping abuse for their One Day Emergency Shelter for Women.
On April 1, 2020, Cradle of Hope became the full managers and operators of the Cradle of Hope One Day Emergency Shelter for Women. The shelter provides emergency, temporary, overnight safety to 24 women and their children, and this includes a bed with bedding, a hot shower, basic toiletries and dinner.
The women and children who are assisted at the shelter mostly come as a result of domestic trauma, abuse and human trafficking.
“President Cyril Ramaphosa announced a nationwide lockdown on Monday, March 23, 2020, and this led to a radical change in the day-to-day lives of many individuals. Already overpopulated homes had to accommodate people all day and night. This led to an increase in domestic violence and had a negative impact on homelessness, as well as employment,” said the Cradle of Hope’s Sharon Lee.
Lee said there had been an increase in individuals and families needing support in the local community.
“Since lockdown, the shelter has been filled to capacity most nights, and as the One Day Emergency shelter is a place the SAPS and Department of Social Development refer women to, we aim to accommodate everyone,” she said.
Lee added that the organisation’s House of Restoration in West-Krugersdorp was a safe haven and a place of empowerment for destitute, vulnerable and abused women and their children that offered temporary and medium-term accommodation, as well as other benefits, such as life-skills training.
“Our objective is to provide our in-house beneficiaries with safe housing, healthy nutrition, assistance to obtain medical services, education, skills training, job creation, creative recreation, as well as emotional and spiritual development on a sustainable basis, and to address the needs in the community by providing daily meals and monthly food parcels to those in need,” she said.
The Star