A rapidly ageing and unsafe fleet of vehicles threatened to derail a Maitland, Cape Town, care and learning centre’s ability to provide its special needs learners with continued access to essential education and therapy, until a recent and massive R890 000 cash injection enabled the purchase of a new bus.
Friends Day Centre has long utilised four increasingly unsafe, rusting and leaking buses, of which only three were operational, to transport disadvantaged children in its charge daily, until the South African Muslim Charitable Trust (SAMCT) stepped in to fund a brand new vehicle.
Commenting on its financial assistance, SAMCT representative, Mr Wasiem Abbas, said: “Without appropriate transport, Friends Day Centre faced the serious risk of its learners – whose parents are unable to afford transport costs – losing access to both ongoing education and vital therapy. Our funding intervention has ensured safe, cost-efficient transport for learners, while enabling the organisation to instead redirect its limited funds towards essential therapy needs.”
Friends Day Centre, established in 1959, is a haven for children with special needs and sets out to provide youngsters with severe intellectual and/or physical challenges with a structured daily programme, appropriate therapies, stimulation and developmental training, so enabling them to develop to their full potential. Today it caters for as many as 120 learners, from as young as two years old. Learners here present with disabilities ranging from Cerebral Palsy and Spina Bifida to Epilepsy and a number of other uncommon disabilities and conditions.
Mr Wasiem Abbas added: “Learning of the care centre’s urgent and potentially crippling logistics plight, the SAMCT was pleased to assist. When we offered our financial assistance, one of its four ageing buses had already been decommissioned and a second was on the brink of mechanical failure, while the third was deteriorating rapidly. Given that the centre was already subsidising 35% of its most disadvantaged learners, great strain was being placed on this crucial organisation’s limited resources.”
The SAMCT was created in 2008, the result of a partnership between Old Mutual Unit Trusts and
Al Baraka Bank, for the creation, marketing and distribution of a suite of Shariah Funds. The organisation provides funding, services and other resources to improve the lives of the vulnerable, deprived and disadvantaged. It has successfully delivered sizeable assistance solutions throughout South Africa – irrespective of race or religion – and continues to work to support needy organisations in the fields of healthcare, social development, poverty alleviation and education. The organisation has long served as a pivotal conduit for the channelling of funding, vital services, and resources to approved public benefit organisations, and remains committed to catalysing positive change and creating a lasting impact on the development and upliftment of, especially, disadvantaged individuals and communities. Its funds are distributed to help improve the health and development of deserving people and organisations, irrespective of race or religion.
“Friends Day Centre plays a critical community support role and – despite suffering severely stretched financial resources – is dedicated to enhancing the quality of life of its learners by affording them the best therapy suited to their individual needs. In so doing, it is creating an environment which is both stimulating and uplifting to those in its care.”
“Accordingly, having a functional transport fleet in place is essential for learners, whose parents do not have the means to transport their children to and from the Centre daily. Alternative transport by parents is either impractical or unaffordable, leading to the very real possibility of withdrawals from the centre, a situation which clearly would not be of benefit to affected children,” said Mr Wasiem Abbas.
He added that the SAMCT was confident that the newly introduced bus would ensure safer transport for learners, whilst simultaneously contributing appreciably towards reducing both operating and maintenance costs, enabling the centre to better conserve its extremely limited financial resources.
Ends
For media enquiries, please contact:
Rasheeda Motala
Social Responsibility Officer Tel: 084 506 2280
Email: samct@samct.co.za
www.samct.co.za