We had the privilege of sponsoring the Amadea Safe House in Pretoria North this week in support of World Aids Day.  Every year, Amadea holds an Aids Day Christmas party for the more than one hundred children that are both in its care and also from the surrounding community, and this year a few of the PPO team members joined in on the activities.  We greeted the queues of smiling faces with a refreshment and then we clapped along to the loud music, occasionally breaking into a jig as the chorus was lip synced.

Amadea is a safe house for HIV infected, disabled, neglected and abused children, and works closely with the social welfare organisations and SAPS in Pretoria and surrounding areas. The house was established on a plot owned by Rina Malan and her husband, Philip. She herself lives in the home that houses a handful of loving staff and more than twenty children between the ages of one and eighteen.  Rina is also involved with outreaches into the rural and local communities, and in December she invites all of the underprivileged special needs children that she works with to a party with a great big Christmas tree, a comical clown and cheesy pizza galore.

Rina believes that children need to be nurtured for creative, intellectual and physical growth and she manages to wear many hats namely: mother; carer; teacher; therapist; campaigner; and protector.  She is also blessed with green fingers and has initiated a vegetable patch not only to feed her children but to also educate them about nurture and sustainability.  We so enjoyed sharing the experience with them, and we all left feeling inspired and filled with hope.