The Orphanage organisation Trust, established by Sicelo Mbonani along with his associates, Makhosonke Mabena, Rose Zithumane, Bafana Tshili, Vusi Thela, Thembela Mahlangu and Thuso Kutoana aim to better the lives of orphans in the east rand as a whole. They have two active campaigns running currently which are ‘Dress An Orphan This Christmas’ and ‘Uniform An Orphan’.
Sicelo Mbonani, the 29-year-old young man was born and bred in Tsakane. He completed a variety of short courses in business. He has a heart of gold and his a firm believer of giving. He is passionate about community development projects and making townships places of employement, playing, investing and living in. He says that he started this initiative with the aim of helping out various community members, “I started the ‘Dress An Orphan This Christmas campaign specifically because I wanted to help orphans to get the feeling of having clothes that are brand new every Christmas just like any other children. I am also an orphan so this is not far-fetched from me. My mother’s friend, Yvonne Modise played a huge role in my life by raising me as her own so I had to be Yvonne to other kids”, says Mbonani.
Mbonani also lays out that though their organisation dresses 278 orphans every year, they try to throw parties on the Christmas days for the orphans to enjoy; people who help by buying clothes for these orphans hardly buy clothes for teenaged orphans. He says that toddlers are the ones who are more likely to get more clothes as well as uniforms. He points out on how the Corona virus pandemic slowed down the project, because some people lost their jobs along the way. However, he is satisfied with the support they get, “The support is amazing. We have people from all across provinces that support us; we get clothes from Mpumalanga, KZN, Kimberly, and Cape-Town and as far as Europe. We are glad that we still received clothes last year even though they were not as much as the previous years. So far, we work with six orphanages in total, three in the Kathorus area and three in the Kwatsaduza area, added Mbonani.
He also highlights that soon he is going to launch other campaigns that will help the organisation grow, to better the lives of the orphans in the future. “We are looking to launch a campaign called One Million Parents where we will ask for one million people to donate R 10 at least once a year so that we can assist the orphans. We would also like to launch one called ‘Warm An Orphan’ where winter clothes can be bought, ‘Feed An Orphan’ to ensure that there’s enough groceries, Mentor An Orphan where orphans are taken to university. Our goal is to make orphans feel whole anD loved,” added Mbonani.