Eluxolweni Children's Shelter

Eluxolweni Children's Shelter operates on Grahamstown to bring relief and care to marginalised and abandoned children, particularly street children. Their aim is to rehabilitate the children with the hope of reintegrating them with their families wherever this is possible. They run a shelter for up to 40 boys in Grahamstown, and work closely with their parents to try to reunite them. While staying at the centre, the children attend school, and also take part in many activities with the help of local university groups including drama, writing, gardening and sports. The children love soccer, and with help from Soweto Connection are developing teams at under-age level. We have also helped them to equip a Theta English centre, to improve the boys’ English language skills while maintaining their home culture and language of Xhosa.

These boys come from the most difficult of family backgrounds. David Classen of Eluxolweni puts it well when he says: “Many privileged observers look at the children we shelter as annoying, rude and dishevelled vagrants whom should be avoided. However, to us, they are brave souls who have grown up in unfortunate environments. They are a source of knowledge and a huge bank of experiences. So what many see as useless annoyances, are to us a rich array of valuable and irreplaceable individuals.”.

Soweto Connection has been working with Eluxolweni since 2004, when John and Sheila lived in Grahamstown.