Emmanuel Children's Home, Middelburg, South Africa

Emmanuel Child & Youth Care Centre (ECYCC) provides care and safe refuge for children who have been abused, neglected, abandoned and orphaned. Based in the town of Middelburg (Eastern Cape, South Africa). ECYCC is a registered NPO (non-profit organisation) in South Africa.

Sunday, June 16, 2013

Trans Karoo Mountain Bike Tour

The excitement is growing, the days are flying past and riders and crew are preparing hard for this year’s great event from Middelburg to Port Elizabeth. 500km in 5 days on mountain bikes following gravel roads and jeep tracks across the Great Karoo raising funds for Emmanuel Child & Youth Care Centre.

It's one week to go until this tour starts so we hope the training is going well for all the riders. We would like to take this opportunity to pass on our gratitude to all our sponsors for their support of this tour and special thanks goes to Billy Teeton for organising this. 


Thanks also go out to Rhett (ECYCC Chairman) and Michelle Newton, as well as Agape Church, for accommodating the Transkaroo Team over the coming weekend. The team will visit the Emmanuel home on Saturday and we look forward to their arrival. Thanks also to Bertus (Board member) and Jaco Meyer (new Treasurer of the ECYCC board) for their part in making the team comfortable during their stay in Middelburg.

Visit the tour website for updates and photos of their progress:
transkaroomtb.blogspot.com



Thursday, June 13, 2013

Rest in Peace


Olwam would have 1 year old today but she never lived to see this birthday which makes all of us at ECYCC very sad. She was living in the home starting from late 2012 and left in Spring 2013, removed from our temporary care to a supposedly better life to grow up in. We prayed that would be true. But a few weeks ago we heard the bad news that she had passed away in unfortunate circumstances, which we feel could have been avoided. We'll never know the full story of what happened to her after she left; all we are left with is numbness about the situation and some photos of a beautiful child which we'll treasure.

We will always miss 'baby', who was our little ray of sunshine and who we have fond memories of. Some things in life seem so unfair but while we express our deep disappointment and frustration with what happened, we try to look forwards and make sense of it the best way we can - it's for children like this ECYCC provides care. While they under our roof they are happy and always protected. We just wish that every child who moves on from the home stays this way and gets to grow up loved.