An Athlone woman with two autistic children has started a non-profit organisation to help children with special needs and disabilities.
South Africa celebrates National Disability Rights Awareness Month annually from November 3 to December 3.
Lindsay Boyd says she started the Autism Care Foundation in May because there is a lack of services in the Athlone area for those with disabilities and special needs.
The foundation aims to teach young disabled people a range of skills: everything from cooking to driving.
Ms Boyd’s son, Keenan, 9, and her daughter, Kayla-Beth, 6, were both diagnosed with autism at the age of 2.
She hopes the foundation will one day be able to run mobile clinics offering counselling and support, but her more immediate aim is to set up a feeding scheme for children with special needs.
“For this, we will need a structure, storage space, fridges and more. We need to campaign for sponsorships. This is important to me because so many people have disabilities and are unemployed because they lack skills.”
She added: “Private schools are very expensive, you pay about R4000 to R5000 a month. We want to make learning accessible for children with disabilities on the whole.”
Her mother, Karen Boyd, said many grandparents were responsible for their disabled grandchildren because their parents ran away from home, and the grandparents were too old and frail to look after the children.
“There is definitely not enough support for disabled people especially feeding schemes and people to teach them skills. People are struggling to cope, because of their disabilities. They can’t find work.”
In a statement, Social Development MEC Sharna Fernandez said the department funded – to the tune of R59 million for the 2022/23 financial year – a range of social services organisations across the province that helped more than 45 000 people with disabilities and their families annually.
“The journey that social workers and special carers walk with parents of children with disabilities is crucial for the mental well-being of families. Communities also have a part to play. If you know your neighbour has a child with special needs, offer to lend a hand where possible, or just sit and listen if they need to talk. Life would be so much easier if more of us practised ubuntu and had compassion for one another,” she said.
For more information about services offered by the department, call 0800 220 250 toll-free or email SD.CustomerCare@westerncape.gov.za