A bright new year at the Holy Family Care Centre - Missionaries of the Sacred Heart

What a wonderful way to begin the new year, with a very welcome update from our friends at the Holy Family Care Centre!

The Holy Family Care Centre is located in Ofcolaco, in the Limpopo Province of South Africa, where it provides residential care for up to 80 orphans, and sick and vulnerable children. Many of these children are living with chronic illnesses such as HIV/AIDs, TB, and other critical conditions. The children are mostly orphaned, and all are extremely vulnerable, so the Holy Family centre truly is a life-saving refuge for them. We at home in the Irish Province have long enjoyed an enduring friendship with Sr Sally and the Holy Family team, and our mission friends and extended Sacred Heart family here at home have provided invaluable support to the OLSH Sisters in Ofcolaco throughout the years.

Back at the beginning of 2024, we asked our mission friends here at home to help the Holy Family community to raise funds to improve the dormitory facilities at the centre, and to build a new toilet block for the toddlers and younger children in their care.

Prior to this, the boys’ dormitory was home to 23 children and two staff members, with beds packed together side-by-side to fit everybody in. The Sisters were hoping to replace the 15-year-old bedding, and buy sets of bunk beds to create more space in the dormitory. Thanks to the generosity of our mission friends here in the Irish Province, the dormitory renovation has been a success, and the boys now have a far more comfortable space for rest.

New bunk beds at the Holy Family Care Centre, purchased as a result of the generosity of our mission friends and benefactors in the Irish Province, through our 2024 World Projects Appeal.

The Sisters also wished to raise funds to build a toilet block for the 25 younger children in the crèche facility, with smaller, junior-sized toilets to help the toddlers with toilet training. The new toilet block has now been constructed, and is a great success with the younger members of the Holy Family community!

A new toilet block built especially for the younger children at the Holy Family Care Centre, thanks to the donations made to our 2024 World Projects Appeal.

“Most sincere thanks to everyone who contributed to the 2024 World Projects Appeal,” writes Sr Jenny Christie FDNSC, International Development Officer for the Daughters of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart. “What a difference your support has made!”

We join Sr Jenny in thanking you, wholeheartedly, for your continued friendship and support, and we wish all at Holy Family a very happy, healthy, and peaceful 2025!