Louis Trichardt, like the rest of South Africa, is facing a high rate of baby abandonment and unplanned pregnancies.
For this reason the Apostolic Faith Mission (AFM) in Louis Trichardt, in collaboration with the Abba organization, will host a local Choose to Care session. The Abba Specialist Adoption and Social Services Organization forms part of the AFM's executive welfare council and has a mandate to facilitate both local and inter-country adoptions.
Over and above this, Abba has a holistic perspective when it comes to child protection services. This has spurred them on to raise awareness in respect of crises and unplanned pregnancies.
The Choose to Care workshop session will aim to shift the communication from "shame and blame" to "care and compassion" and thus address all the role players in managing a crisis pregnancy.
"Statistics indicate that although awareness of adoption has increased, adoption numbers are still declining, whilst child abandonment appears to be increasing," said Abba in a press release.
According to Abba, this can be attributed to a number of factors. Their numbers show that 30% of South African teenagers have reported "ever having being pregnant", and that most of those pregnancies are unplanned. There are a number of causes, including sugar daddies, ignorance about birth control, rape, not wanting to use contraceptives, proving one's womanhood, transactional purposes (survival), as well as health-care workers' and nurses' refusal to provide birth control solutions to young women because of their traditional views on sexuality. For these reasons, an educational Choose to Care workshop is of crucial importance.
The training material that will be covered in the session has been formulated by the National Adoption Coalition of South Africa (NACSA) as a practise tool to provide knowledge and skills. It will be presented in an experiential and interactive manner to apply learning.
The session will kick off at 10:00 on Thursday morning in the church hall of the AFM Charisma, situated at 70 Munnik Street. During this session, Abba's specialist social workers will address all the local relevant child protection role players, such as hospital staff, teachers, prosecutors and members of the South African Police Service.
The session will focus on issues such as the options considered by a person experiencing a crisis pregnancy, the reality of abandonment and legal process and developing policy and protocol in line with legislation and good practise.
At 14:00, a special session will be held for domestic workers, with the intention of making them ambassadors, so that they can go into their individual communities and spread the word. This session is free of charge and people are encouraged to send their workers in large numbers. General members of the public are also welcome to attend the afternoon session.
For more information, Past Leonie Meyfarth can be contacted at 084 219 4406 or the church office at Tel 015 516 0486.