“Alarming” statistics of unplanned teenage and child pregnancies in the country has inspired the opening of a pregnancy crisis centre for young expectant moms.
The Bright Hope crisis pregnancy centre, a ministry of King of Kings Baptist Church, launched at Living Hope, a Christian non-profit organisation, in Capri near Masiphumelele on Thursday 5 May.
Dianne Louwrens, facilitator at the centre, says they realised there was a growing need in the community.
“We started thinking about a crisis centre last year when we saw the stats coming through. We realised there was a growing need, especially in our area, because there was nothing happening. Then we started planning. I got a hold of the Pregnancy Help Network, a national facilitating organisation. We arranged training, which happened in February, and my team received training. Living Hope supports us and said they are fully behind us.”
Louwrens adds the crisis centre will be a safe place where young mothers can have a pregnancy and HIV test done, confidentially and for free.
“They (Living Hope) have access to the community and will be helping us with pregnancy tests so that we can offer the free pregnancy tests for girls. They will offer free HIV testing and counselling at the same time. So, if there is a rape or something like that the girl can know her status immediately and receive the proper counselling and care. Through Living Hope, we also have one social worker.”
She adds that often young mothers do not have a safe space to talk if they are being abused.
“The big thing about the stats at the moment is that the only place they can go for a pregnancy test is to either buy it themselves or go to a clinic. And at the clinic, you don’t have confidentiality and you don’t have privacy. Here at the crisis centre, we can actually pick up if there is abuse, if there is incest, rape or even trafficking. You can pick all of that up here, privately, where she can come to a safe space and share what is going on in her life. Then we can get the proper help to her.”
Louwrens says Living Hope has made a nursing sister available to conduct the tests.
“We are here on a Thursday from 13:30 to 16:30 and we hope in the future to expand to Capricorn, Ocean View, to the Valley and Red Hill.”
Founder of Living Hope Avril Thomas says that 14 years ago, they discovered that some people were so desperate not to have a baby that they would dispose of the infant.
This discovery led to providing a baby safe at the King of Kings Baptist Church to moms who did not want to keep their newborns.
“The baby safe started as a result of a baby found in Masiphumelele and brought to the church to my husband who was the pastor at that time. It just awakened us to actually acknowledge there were people who were so desperate not to keep their babies that they were willing to put their babies in a bag.”
Thomas says they wanted to give people an alternative.
“Rather than just disposing of their baby, to actually put it in a safe place so that we could give the baby hope. And that’s why it’s hope for babies. That started about 14 years ago now and that first little boy is now a strapping young man who goes to Wynberg Boys’ School,” says Thomas.
Since the launch of the baby safe, seven more babies have been found in the safe space.
“Since then, there have been only seven babies placed in the box and three walk-ins. More than that, we like to use the baby safe as a way of promoting that there is hope for moms and while they are still pregnant, they can talk to someone and we walk the journey with them.”
According to Thomas, they started by doing mental health screening at the local hospital and found that 83% of the moms did not plan to have their babies. “They were either abused or weren’t in a relationship where a baby could be raised. Of that 83%, around 18% had considered suicide in the past month. So we realised that mental health was a real challenge and something we needed to look more into.”
V Continued on page 3.
