About

Little Angels is an educare center for children, youth and adults in the township of Hangberg in Cape Town, South Africa. It’s a registered not-for-profit: NPC 2015/373309/08.

The center was set up by Liezl Mathews in 2011, originally as a crèche as she saw a great need to keep children off the streets, away from drugs and troubled family relations. The crèche was meant as an option for families who could not pay the higher fees for a regular crèche.

The crèche soon started accepting children from clients of CARES, a substance misuse rehabilitation day center – they started sending the children of their clients to Little Angels, so that the clients could attend workshops and meetings at CARES.

Today Little Angels looks after approximately 80 children in the crèche at any one time, with many more lining up, wanting to enroll, but due to lack of facilities and an inability to pay staff proper salaries, numbers have had to be capped. The numbers also fluctuate as family situations change.

Getting uniforms in 2020.

Apart from providing the children at the crèche with breakfast and lunch, there is also a Feedings Scheme that operates when needed/funds allow, as well as support groups for HIV and aids. The Feeding Scheme was set up in 2006 by Liezl and her sister, Jessica Tillings (who has since gone to join the real angels). it’s been running non-stop since the outbreak of COVID, apart from being closed just after Little Angels was burnt down. It was opened again as soon as new containers had been installed.

In addition to providing support and education for the children and youth, Little Angels often acts as a go-between agent for Social Development and the Police, monitoring the children on their request. Little Angels also reports any abuse, or suspected abuse, to the aforementioned organizations. In some instances, Little Angels also ensure parents take a child to the doctors.

All children and youth are taught about abuse, both sexual and physical, and are encouraged to tell the teachers if anything happens at home. Many cases have been brought to Child Welfare, Social Development and the police thanks to this.

Little Angels accepts children from the nearby Imizamu Yethu as well as Hout Bay; working across borders. This is important due to mistrust between various groups in society.

Once graduating from the crèche children normally attend the local Sentinel Primary School and later Sentinel High School. As there are up to 50 children in one class educational needs are often not met and it’s important that children receive additional education from other sources. Especially as bullying, gang formation and the use of drugs are all too common occurrences at Sentinel. This is one of the reasons we run youth programs.

In addition to youth programs, we host workshops and support groups for the community at large. What programs we run at any one time vary due to the availability of staff and funds. We are in 2021 putting in place several more permanent programs, however. Both for youth and adults.

When this page was created, Little Angels operated out of three shacks; acting as classrooms, an office and storage room. There were also portable toilets and a tap outdoors. There was no electricity.  Over the years, we grew by installing containers thanks to donations from various organizations and individuals. We also built a shaded deck. In 2020 all this burnt down when the crèche was torched by protesters.

We are now rebuilding with the help of donated containers and are looking to put proper structures in place next year.

When we still only had shacks.

Little Angels is a charitable organization, surviving thanks to donations. Parents are encouraged to pay R350 per child per month, but not everyone can afford it. It’s a center for underprivileged kids, so parents who have a good income are not the ones we cater to. The staff at Little Angels receive a small salary. They all still live in poverty, some of them in shacks.

The vision for Little Angels is to build a community center to host the crèche and youth programs, offices, workshop rooms and a safety house for women, children and youth. The outside area will be converted into a playground and sustainable garden, supplying fresh vegetables. The first step has been taken by Urban-Think Tank, an award winning architectural group, that has worked all over the world to create sustainable architectural solutions for low-income areas, as they have started on some drawings. Amongst other prizes the group won the Venice Biennale in 2012.

Together we stand for change. #TogetherForChange