"We shape tomorrow's world by what we teach our children today"
(2009 Annual edition: Our Daily Bread)

It is this truism which underpins The Parent Centre's reason for existence and which will continue to do so, as the Centre's staff themselves experience the positive outcomes of their conscious implementation of positive parenting practice within their families, but also the positive feedback provided by participants in the various programmes offered by the Centre.

Local, and international, funders support supplementing the state subsidy and the Community Chest's grant ensured that the momentum generated by the 25th anniversary celebrations (2008), continued into the year under review. One of the essential and welcome outcomes of this process was the employment of additional staff, facilitating the enhancement of materials within existing programmes and the physical expansion of programmes into areas not serviced previously. These aspects will be embroidered upon in the individual programme reports.

A particular, exciting highlight of the past year has been the completion of a child-friendly version of The Children's Act (no 38 of 2005) a collaborative effort among NGOs, namely, Cape Town Child Welfare Society, Age-in-Action, African Decade for Persons with Disabilities and The Parent Centre; these organisations forming part of the west region of the Hlanganani Children Care Network. This national network's focus is on the provision of services in respect of orphaned and vulnerable children. The book, entitled 'My Children's Act Book' (with a foreword by Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu) will be launched on Youth Day, 16 June 2009 at the Holocaust Centre, Cape Town, as part of the Holocaust Centre's weeklong exhibition 'Champions of the Child'.

Courage is not the absence of fear but the mastery of it (author unknown). This was evidenced by the entire staff complement of The Parent Centre and recipients of our services, in their endeavours to meet the demanding challenges of caring for, and raising, resilient children within a pervasive climate of sordid criminal acts particularly directed at women and children, together with the fallout of the global recession.

WE SALUTE YOU: the staff and participants in all our programmes, the Board of Management and the funders and donors who have, and are still, contributing to making the aforementioned processes possible.

Celeste Van der Merwe
Director

Read the full Annual Report 2009 in (.pdf file)