South Africa

What we’re doing

• We’re helping 73,000 children made vulnerable by HIV and poverty get access to food, healthcare, social security and education
• We’re working with migrant children and young people to protect their rights
• We provided emergency support to thousands of people to prevent the spread of cholera
• We’re launching a campaign to prevent children under five dying

Save the Children in South Africa

We provide practical and emotional support to vulnerable children in three of the country’s poorest provinces, Free State, Limpopo and Eastern Cape. In the last year, nearly 73,000 children have benefited from our food support, help with registration for child-support grants, healthcare and school uniforms.

We’re helping children affected by HIV and AIDS

Nearly 280,000 children under 15 are living with HIV. Most (at least 72%) can’t get the treatment they need. There are also more than 1.4 million children who have been orphaned by AIDS and face a future of poverty and neglect.

We’ve developed a model of community-based care for vulnerable children called Child Care Forums. These forums identify the children who need help, and provide practical support, such as food parcels, clothing and school uniforms.  We’re supporting 158 forums, benefiting more than 550,000 children.

We’re helping children to claim their rights

The South African government has excellent child welfare and protection laws and policies. But there are still big gaps in service provision. We focus on influencing government departments to improve children’s services and to positively influence officials’ attitudes towards particular groups of children, especially migrant children.

One-third of the children we work with don’t have identity documents or birth certificates, which means they can’t receive the state benefits they’re entitled to. We’re working with the Department of Home Affairs to ensure all children have birth certificates or identity documents.

We’re protecting migrant children

There’s been a big increase in the number of children and young people aged 12-17 who come into South Africa from Zimbabwe and other neighbouring countries.

These children are frequently denied their rights and are often detained illegally or deported. We’re setting up safe spaces and tracing parents of separated children. For more information read Children on the Move.

We’re making schools better places for children

 Many children stop going to school early because they have to earn money to support their family or care for a family member with AIDS.

We’re working to make schools more caring places for children. There are now 122 schools taking part in our Caring Schools programme, which helps schools give appropriate care and support to migrant, orphaned and other vulnerable children.

We're responding to emergencies

During the cholera epidemic that spread from Zimbabwe in late 2008, we set up a feeding point in Musina for hundreds of asylum-seekers, provided food and nutritious drinks for mothers and children and taught thousands of people how to prevent the disease.

More information

• Read the full South Africa country brief (PDF 110KB) for more information about our work in South Africa.

Save the Children Wish List

Save the Children's Wish List is a range of gifts that you can buy for children worldwide. When you buy a gift from the Wish List, we make sure it gets to a child that needs it the most. Gifts that children in South Africa really need are:

• Supply of seeds costs just £11. Supplying poor families with food can make all the difference when times are tough, but at some point they'll need to be able to provide for themselves. If we supply them with seeds to plant vegetables, they'll be able to start growing their own food. 
• School uniforms. Buying a school uniform for a child costs just £18. It's not something that you may think of, but in many countries not having a uniform means children are not allowed to go to school.  For such a simple reason, it seems awful that children are missing out on the chance of an education and the excitement of making friends with children their own age. You can kit a child out with the clothes they need to get back to school.

Watch a clip of Paul O'Grady's visit to a feeding centre supported by Save the Children in Freestate, South Africa.

Watch a clip of Paul O'Grady's visit to a Save the Children supported orphans home in Freestate, South Africa.