We are travelling back in time for #MalamuleleMondays, all the way back to a small pilot project at Malamulele Hospital in Limpopo in 2005.

At the time, there were no therapists stationed at the hospital and children affected by CP were treated only by a small team of dedicated therapy assistants.

A team of nine therapists from the Johannesburg area volunteered five days of their time to work with twenty-six children from the area affected by Cerebral Palsy. The children received intensive therapy on a daily basis, while their mothers were taught how to continue the programme at home. The changes evidenced in the children over the five days surpassed all expectations, resulting in the founding of a formal organisation, dubbed Malamulele Onward, in 2006. The word Malamulele is the Tsonga word that means to save someone or help someone.

The vision of the newly-formed organisation was to “address the unmet rehabilitation needs of children with CP in rural areas of Southern Africa through access to sustainable support services.” Our initial focus was not specifically on the caregivers but the children themselves. However, for the long-term sustainability we knew we had to start with training the caregivers to understand CP better, and how they can help their child when at home. This, however, was also not enough. We recognised that the effect long-lasting change, every important person in the child’s life needs to be working together to help them. Therefore, for the past four years, we have turned our attention to strengthening CP services as a whole. Through the provision of training and ongoing support we aim to create a supportive environment for the care-giver and their child, which includes supporting the local rehabilitation services at hospitals and primary health care centres.

In the past 11years Malamulele Onward has grown significantly in impact and capacity. From a small, once-off project consisting of; twenty-six children, direct therapy provision only and a handful of dedicated volunteers, we now are a registered NPO employing 12 full time staff members, with 23 active rural sites (across the Eastern Cape, Limpopo, Mpumalanga, KwaZulu Natal and Lesotho) that collectively provide services to over 1200 children. We have trained and support 23 women who have children with CP to run workshops, do home visits, help in their CP clinics or run support groups in their local communities. We run therapist training courses at least 3 times per year and are also expanding our impact by completing research in the field of CP.

We have changed many lives and plan to change many more by creating positive, sustainable change within homes and communities.

#CPotential