"Help the Rural Child" has arrived in Sea Point!!

We are delighted to announce the opening of not one, but 2 Help the Rural Child Charity shops, one selling second hand clothing and marvelous bric a brac and another selling books. Our shops are next to one another at 23 On Arthurs, 369 Main Road (between Shoprite and St. Johns Piazza). Please pop in and have a look. We have a lovely selection of clothing in excellent condition and at fabulously reasonable prices. Our bookshop has a wide variety of all sorts of books – from novels to reference, to children’s books, Africana and science fiction – you won’t be disappointed!

Help the Rural Child is a charity that’s well worth supporting. It’s one that is always exciting, expanding and totally different. It has been going for many years and has an excellent reputation for doing what it says.

Help the Rural Child’s unique feature is Charity Shops - the main purpose of which is to help you the public, by taking unwanted books, bric a brac and clothes off your hands and turning those very same items into funds for organisations working to brighten the lives of the poorest of rural children.

Few people give much thought to rural children, but believe me they are out there, in large numbers, many struggling each day to stay in school, often going to school in the mornings without food or warm clothing in winter. We support rural programmes like POP – the Path out of Poverty programme where they do everything possible to help children stay in school.

Since January 2010 we have been supporting the basic running costs of the POP rural youth centre at Esterhof, the dusty, deprived little township 2km from the well known Riebeek Kasteel village.

Edlyne van der Westhuizen, the Centre Manager and a band of extraordinary volunteers from the Esterhof community provide a whole range of exciting and worthwhile opportunities for desperately poor children.

Hannetjie is a such a volunteer. In her middle thirties with

three children of her own she has, for the past 18 months prepared and

cooked a hot meal each day of the week for up to 275 children school children.

Quite frankly unbelievable!

An after-school project at the centre provides a safe, supervised space for children to do their homework, a lovely quiet library – with books provided by Help the Rural Child, and access to computers.

For the last two weeks 200 children or more have attended a school holiday programme each day. Can you imagine what it is like for a child to have something to share with your teachers and friends when you go back to school? To have done something interesting and exciting to do instead of sitting in the dust – being prey for drug dealers and booze merchants. POP is a wonderful project and we’re proud to be one of their major funders.

Our “ life lines” at Help the Rural Child Charity Shops are volunteers and donations. Our shops are staffed mostly with volunteers, wonderful people who are vital to the success of our shops. If you have 4 hours a week to give away, then please think about volunteering your time in one of our new Sea Point shops. Judging from our shops in Mowbray, Wynberg, Retreat and Fish Hoek the volunteers all enjoy being busy and having the opportunity to do something really worthwhile for children. Think about it, pop into the shops or give our friendly manager Mary a ring on

We also need stock to make the Sea Point shops bright and exciting. With your help we can make the new Sea Point shops beat our other shops hands down!! I know you will be generous and bring us the books, clothes, CDs, unwanted gifts, toys, ornaments and any other goodies we can sell to make a success of these two new shops You can drop them off at the shops or we can collect. Just give us a call at 021-6898392.

Between us we can provide Sea Point with a great new place where some can get rid of the things they need to get rid of, others can pick up a brilliant bargain and poor rural children can get a hot meal and a kind hug every day.