MEDICAL STUDENTS TEAM UP FOR COMMUNITY PROJECT

By Staff Reporter

Third-year medical students from the University of the Free State were assigned, as part of their studies, to Kidz Care Trust, a non-profit organisation (NGO), to assist the organisation with its needs.

Kidz Care Trust is located at the Roodewal suburb in Bloemfontein. It is said to be the only registered non-profit organisation in Bloemfontein which specialises in working with children living in the streets.

“This NGO was first established in 2000 with the aim of decreasing the number of children and youth living on the streets of Bloemfontein and to help transform their lives into lives of value, which they can envision and which they deserve,” said one of the group members. The member added, “Our group also felt honoured to be allocated this NGO as we see helping these children who have to live on the streets of Bloemfontein as an extremely worthy cause.”

The group said they performed a health needs assessment and determined the most important needs at the NGO that they could practically assist the children with, considering Covid-19 regulations.

One of the group’s missions was to equip the boys from Kidz Care Trust with skills, knowledge and equipment needed to help them successfully reintegrated as functional members of society. The group created voice-over PowerPoint slides and pamphlets to educate the boys on basic hygiene and safe sexual practices, nutrition and how to start and maintain a vegetable garden.

The group received donations from Huis Goedversorg in Boshof, MVDKalahari Stads- en Streetsbeplanners, as well as Maswana JV to assist with applying gardening and other skills in their lives.

“The donations included gardening equipment and seeds to enable them to start and maintain a vegetable garden, toiletries for hygienic purposes, canned food and other non-perishables as well as a soccer ball for recreation,” a member of the group added.  They started with the project on 4 February and handed over the donations on 16 April.

“We hope we made as big an impact on the lives of the children as they have made on ours,” were the words of one of the students.