El Roi Baby Home opened its doors in October 2012. Named for “the God who sees us”, El Roi is a place where we provide a safe and loving home for babies on their way to adoption. We currently are home to 12 babies who are in the process of being connected with “forever families” through local and inter-country adoption placements with help from Abba Adoptions. We are seeking to create a home environment where our babies receive all of the things they need to have a healthy, loving and balanced start to life. This is done through intentional bonding therapy and kangaroo care, daily one-on-one stimulation and physical therapies, on-site medical supervision and quality staffing.
EL ROI BABY HOME
49%
RAISED R 343,944.53
GOAL R 700,000
THE STORY OF ABANDONMENT TO ADOPTION
We have designed a program that provides our babies with specialised care to help meet their emotional, physical, medical and spiritual needs, including:
- Bonding Initiation that includes “kangaroo care” and a first 48 hour individual care program
- Uniform daily schedule to help establish routine and healthy boundaries
- Sleep Training which provides that babies with 2 good naps a day and typically produces 12 hours of night-time sleep by 6 months of age
- A dedicated ‘therapy and stimulation’ staff member who devotes her day to ensuring our children receive all the assistance they need to catch up on milestones.
To date we have been able to care for 22 babies, 9 of which have been connected with their forever families through the process of adoption. Statistically speaking, on average 200 babies are abandoned in Gauteng each month. The majority of those babies are left in dangerous or hidden places. In an effort to open the discussion of adoption and abandonment with our community we installed our very own Baby Safe in 2014. It is a place of anonymous abandonment where a mother could abandon her baby in a safe place. It is a covered, metal box in our palisade fence that has a weighted sensor in it. When a baby is placed in the safe, an alarm rings in the home and an Auntie would quickly fetch the baby. It provides mothers with a chance to abandon her baby to life rather than death and provides our community with a visible reminder that there are options to be considered and help to be received when anyone is dealing with an unplanned or crisis pregnancy.
Other services we offer:
- Individually designed daily OT Exercises that help our babies to stay on track developmentally
- Personal History – each baby will leave our house with a well documented and photographed memory book of all their key milestones, daily activities, likes and dislikes
HOW WE CARE FOR OUR BABIES
Our babies are cared for by a team of nine local and international, paid and volunteer Aunties who are scheduled around the clock to keep our home running smoothly. These Aunties are working together to create a safe, loving and consistent home environment where each baby is cared for until they leave our El Roi family. Our Staff meets monthly to discuss our babies, our home and to spend time enhancing our skill set through training workshops and discussions.