South Africa's many thousands of homeless children flock to the inner cities where boys join groups of street-children, or so-called ‘twilight children' and survive on petty crime, get addicted to sniffing glue, or end up in one of the many shelters set up to service their needs.  Female children, however, never had any resources (or a catch net) to help them.

  For most of the destitute girls (15 000+ at any given time) prostitution or servility was the only option to survive by.  That is until 1991 when The House was founded, and served more than three hundred girls per year.  For many years The House was the only resource these young people had in the entire country.  However, due to aggressive advocacy and awareness campaigns over the years The House spearheaded a national and international movement to create more resources for at-risk girl children and youth.  We also assisted in founding many sister organisations throughout the country and worked side-by-side with provincial, national and international government agencies to create encompassing legislation and improved resources for this sector in South Africa.

Thanks to the wonders of international media and MNet (a private television network) the quest for the girl child on the street in South Africa eventually reached every household in the country and thousands of caring people, volunteers, businesses, corporations and foreign governments, made the tremendous success of The House Group possible. 

Today The House Group owns and operates two residential care centres (shelters) in Hillbrow (the Bronx of Johannesburg), a skills centre on the outskirts of Johannesburg, and a 100 acres ranch / farm outside Pretoria where the Kulula program is situated.  Between the three residential facilities The House Group accommodates up to seventy five children and young adults on a 24/7/365 basis.  Doing the math, one realises more than 82 000 meals are prepared and served every year; these children have to attend school (in uniform), receive counselling, therapy, basic medical attention, toiletries and school books, transportation and a measure of recreation.  Our personnel make great sacrifices in terms of work hours, minimum wages, working and living in the most dangerous suburb in the world, and coping with emotional extremes that would shake hardened soldiers in their boots.

The House Group continues to serve the needs of girl child on the street and relies on members, volunteers, and sponsors to continue its success.

You can make a difference!  Each and every one of us discovered The House, came to understand its plight, and like you, started to volunteer whatever we could offer.  Thirteen years later, the first girls we saved from brothels in 1991 are today between twenty five and thirty years old, most are married, have families of their own –and did not end up in torture, sex slavery or in the Johannesburg morgue like so many thousands of other girls we could not get to.

Visit our Membership and Volunteer pages, and subscribe to the E-newsletter to learn more and become a friend of The House.