A day in the life of an SOS mother

SOS Children's Village Rustenburg mothers are well settled into the Village with over 75 children safely ensconced in their care. Mums Portia, Bitsang and Matise share a snapshot view of a day in their lives:

Portia: "As an SOS mother at SOS Children's Village Rustenburg in South Africa I get up at five o'clock in the morning to have a bath and start preparing breakfast for the children that go to school. By half past five I wake the children up so that they can get ready for school because some of them are very slow or do not want to get up that early. After they have washed and dressed I check all the time whether everything is in place. Is the school uniform properly put on? The hair combed? And so on. Breakfast is already on the table and everybody has something to eat. By the time the school transport arrives every child must be neat and tidy with her or his school bag. I also have to stay outside to make sure that they get safely into the mini busses with their lunch boxes. Otherwise they leave them on the table or elsewhere."

Bitsang: "We walk with the toddlers who go to kindergarten, holding their hands along the street, and drop them off there. As mothers we have to cooperate by alternating our routines. Some take the toddlers to the kindergarten and some stay with the babies. There are days when some of the children need to go for routine checkups and vaccinations to clinics or hospitals. The fact that our village is integrated into the community means we find it easy to just go to the corner of the street and get a taxi to town or wherever we want to go."

Matise: "There is the laundry that we do every other day and of course, the daily house cleaning and cooking. We plan our routines in such a way that we rest before school is out so as not to get overloaded. We make family time by sitting and chatting to the children to not only hear about their problems but also to get know them better and to bond with them. In between we have to go to town and do our shopping. Weekends are for them to help with the house chores and to have fun with the village children or their friends in the rest of the community. Some Saturdays or holidays we take our children on outings to the park. On Sundays we all go to church and have lunch together in a relaxed atmosphere listening to gospel music.We attend various meetings and training courses with the village administrator, social worker, village director, or just amongst the mothers. We learn a lot about child and youth care, finance policies, children's rights and self improvement - and we really enjoy it!"

The SOS Children's Village in Rustenburg was built as part of “6 villages for 2006”, SOS Children’s joint 2006 World Cup campaign with FIFA. The ten family houses in the Village in South Africa’s North West province are slowly being filled with vulnerable children from the country’s mining area.