The Homestead (Projects for Street Children) is a registered Non-Profit Organisiation and has section 18A tax status in South Africa. We have been established since 1982 and have a simple mission – “To get and keep children off the street and reconstruct their shattered lives.”

The programme, which has become a model for similar projects in South Africa, is based on developmental principles. Because there is no single solution it offers a continuum of projects, both on and off the streets, which address the needs of street children and their families and through which the children can grow towards competence and self-confidence in their lives.

From street work and intake shelters, through more settled residential and educational care, to family reconstruction services, we get children off the streets and help them rebuild their lives and their futures. We have also developed projects that aim to prevent children at risk from coming onto the streets.

It is difficult work, intensive, sometimes heartbreaking, but kids are resilient and “hope” is the watchword.

“Belief in the human spirit transcends all reason.... and flies beyond the frail fingers of our knowledge”

On our website (http://www.homestead.org.za/) we invite you to view our work. It is an indigenous model which, in order to engage as many children as possible, offers each child only as much as he needs – instead of having three pairs of shoes, each child can make do with one. But in sharing their lives with each other and with a sensible and generous adult team, they gain much else that they can take with them when they move away.