Somerset West Creche

Stable Ministries was founded in the Strand informal settlement, Asanda Village by Pastor Morris Van Zyl in 2003 for a group of Zimbabwean Christians who worked in his construction company, Van Zyl Builders. Eventually, a double stand was bought in Nomzamo, Strand, where they built a church in 2010.

The women in the church were looking for employment opportunities for themselves and started looking after babies at home. They identified the need for a Christian crèche in the community and Morris started it in the church building with 6 children. When Morris passed away at the end of 2012 in a tragic work accident, Shofar Somerset West stepped in and took up his legacy. By then, the crèche catered for 15 children. Kibwe Kids (a sister NGO to Prochorus) bought the property from his estate to ensure the continuation of the work started on the property.

In 2013 a generous donor, Secure Data, erected two wooden structures (18m2 & 27m2) as permanent homes for the expanding crèche. Our crèche currently caters for up to 60 children between the ages of 2 and 6 years, on a daily basis with three full-time teachers with the help of some assistants, looking after them from 7 am to 6 pm. The structures are also used for educational purposes when outreaches are done in the community by the church and on Sundays for the children’s church.

Masikhule, an NGO in the Helderberg, is also involved with the ECD facility. Prochorus wants to ensure that the learning inside the facility provides the children with a solid foundation for life-long learning and productive participation in life. Masikhule provides teacher training and supports and mentors the crèche from an educational perspective.

At that stage, the wooden structures still had no electricity or ceilings, which meant very cold classrooms during winter. During the November 2013 floods in the Helderberg, extensive damage occurred at the crèche, and with the help of a donor, Prochorus started repairs by replacing the wooden floors with a concrete floors in the structures, henceforth securing the structures to the ground. We then prayed for provision to transform what we were given to steward into something special and safe for the children.

Kibwe Kids then funded the electricity supply to the church grounds, and we could provide a temporary electricity supply to the crèche buildings. The local Somerset West Shofar church assisted over the years by providing volunteers to most projects undertaken at the crèche, i.e. the 2014 project ‘LetsPlant Asanda Village’, which provided the premises’ fences with Bougainvillaea bush covering. We’ve had wonderful involvement from them over the years on other projects like ‘LetsPaint’, ‘Books of Life’, ‘Eat for Life’, ‘LetsPlay’ and many more.

In 2014, a national Prochorus donor, Bester Feed & Grain (Pty) Ltd, allocated funds to run an extensive community upliftment project for our crèche. Both the crèche structures had painted inside walls, insulated ceilings, shelving for the educational toys, educational and Biblical posters on all walls, huge painted blackboards in each structure, desks and chairs for the teachers, mattresses for nap-times and cutlery and crockery for lunch-time. The outsides of the two structures were also painted with huge Biblical scenes, done by the staff of Bester Feed and with the help of the church community volunteers. Rentia Deyzel was the driving force behind the scenes for the Bester group in what was to be known affectionately as the ‘LetsPaint’ project. This also served as a ‘blueprint’ for all the future paint projects done here.

Some of the other needs of the crèche that have been met through the years by numerous very generous private and corporate donors include: