Every Child Deserves a Family SARAH MACKINTOSH CHATTED TO LEANNE AND KIM LORRANCE-BROWN, FOUNDERS OF LIKHON ITHEMBA AND HOLAH BABY HOME.
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eanne and Kim met in Australia, where they were both doing care work. Leanne has always had an interest in working with special needs children and adults. She is from the UK and Kim is from Durban. When they decided to move to South Africa, they knew if they were going to live in here, they had to do something to help make a difference. “South Africa is a beautiful country with incredible people, but there is so much poverty, struggling, heartache. You can’t live here and not do something to help others when there are so many that need support,” says Kim. “I am adopted, so from
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a young age I wanted to help less fortunate children and be able to give them a better start to life and better future. Leanne really wanted to adopt and I wasn’t quite ready for that. We spent some time in other baby homes, volunteering and learning about how they run. And we were hooked we decided that we needed to start something like this,” explains Kim. And so House of Love and Hope (HOLAH) was born. Their plan then was to start off small - have one little baby at a time and look after them until they could be reunited with biological families, or they find a forever family. That was just over
eight years ago and they have come so far from then, learnt so much and grown so much as an organisation and as individuals. “Having one child at a time didn’t last very long there are so many children that need a safe home and we just couldn’t say no!” explains Kim. “The first child that we ever took in at HOLAH was Soldier. He was five months old when he came to us. His family were struggling and they wanted a better life for him. We were thrilled to receive our first baby, but also very apprehensive. Within a few months of Solider joining us, we knew there was no way we were going to ever let this
