Positive response to appeal

IT WAS with a heavy heart that we had to take the decision to close our APD Daycare Centre in Motherwell, where we care for 29 severely disabled children.

To hand retrenchment letters to nine dedicated staff members and to advise 29 sets of parents that you cannot care for their little ones any longer is a terrible task.

The centre has a flavour of uniqueness to it in that it provides little ones with physical stimulation and also prepares them for entry into the special needs school environment.

The little ones are fetched and carried in our specially-equipped bus and provided with two cooked meals a day.

For this service the parents pay a paltry R300 per month.

Our thanks go out to the editorial team of The Herald for their quick response and positive reporting.

The article that appeared in Friday's Herald "Blow as centre faces axe" resulted in the positive response from Riel du Toit of Aurora Hospital, who dipped deep into his pocket to provide R150000, a three month reprieve for the centre.

It is our hope that the follow-up article in The Herald on Monday February 10 "Helping hand halts closing of daycare centre" and for justifiably so, featuring Aurora Hospital as your "hero of the day", businesses in Nelson Mandela Bay will be inspired to also come to our rescue.

Thank you once again to The Herald who chose to take the positive route in a day and age where it is so easy to fall into the trap of negatively sensationalising these issues.

Brian Bezuidenhout, executive director, Association for Persons with Disabilities, Nelson Mandela Bay