Thandi House - Pietermaritzburg

Thandi House is a family-based long-term home run by Mark and Rene Morcom. Caring for the broken and forgotten children of our town, giving them the love and a family every child deserves. We care for up to 25 children including young girls faced with unplanned pregnancy.
We view our role as ‘mommy’ and ‘daddy’ as very important in their lives. Who they are and what they will become relies on our ability to give of ourselves to fill their lives with unconditional love, security and the knowing that they belong. We take every child into our family as our own and they will remain with us for as long as they need us. We do not turn children away on their 18th birthday as many other homes do. We give our children support and love at every stage of their lives into adulthood or until  

Show more

they can stand on their own two feet. A family is forever!
Started in 2009 after a large number of newborn babies were found dead in trash cans, gutters, fields and public toilets. The name “Thandi” is a Zulu version meaning “love”. We named the home after a little girl who was one of the few babies found alive during this time. She was only one day old and was found by a man passing by, on a street corner in a sealed plastic bag. She became a beacon of hope that we could save many more babies. We installed a baby box (a computerized box installed in a church wall) which is a safe and legal way to abandon an unwanted baby without bringing any harm to the baby. We hoped that the box would provide safe options to desperate moms and has since brought down the death rate of babies found to almost none at the current time.
Once opening our home to these precious unwanted babies, we fell more in love, felt more called and more committed to giving up our lives and saving and serving the children without hope, without love and without a mom and dad. Now we love and care for, and are mommy and daddy to a variety of children in need from abandoned babies, to raped and abused children, blind, mentally and physically disabled children, terminally ill children as well as young pregnant teenage girls who have no support or family to care for them or their baby. We are a registered non-profit and tax-exempt charity in South Africa under the name ASSIST and do not receive funding from the government for a variety of reasons. We rely on the kindness of individuals and businesses to keep our doors open, our rent paid, our fridge full and our children in school.