London’s Guardian Profiles South African Nursery School, Pediatric Hospice for HIV/AIDS Patients
London's Guardian yesterday profiled the Cotlands School, a nursery school attached to a "sanctuary" home for abandoned, abused and HIV-positive children in Johannesburg, South Africa. The school, which began in 1936 as a home for unmarried women with children, has become "one of the most effective non-profit organizations caring for children affected by HIV/AIDS," according to the Guardian. The sanctuary houses 42 children up to the age of six, and an attached pediatric hospice -- the first of its kind in South Africa -- cares for 20 HIV-positive, terminally ill children ranging in age from newborns to nine year olds. Teachers at the nursery school treat students from the sanctuary the same as those from the surrounding community and have developed a workbook to explain the disease to the young children. The workbook is now distributed throughout the city, and a second workbook on death and dying is being developed (McGregor, Guardian, 6/17).
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