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kids about to lose home

VULNERABLE: Some of the homeless children who are going to lose their shelter. Pic. Mbuzeni Zulu. 20/04/2008. © Sowetan.
VULNERABLE: Some of the homeless children who are going to lose their shelter. Pic. Mbuzeni Zulu. 20/04/2008. © Sowetan.

Dudu Busani

Dudu Busani

More than 60 children of the Rosca Children's Home on the West Rand are to lose the shelter they have been living in for more than two years.

Residents of the home include orphans and abused and displaced children from Gauteng.

Their house in Roodepoort burnt down in 2005 on the night Rosca's late founder, Siyabonga Mhlongo, received the Sowetan Community Builder of the Year Award.

For months after losing their home the children and caregivers were accommodated at Nkosi's Haven Village until they moved to a rented house in Florida.

Rosca director Tirivhanhu Gunguwo said the owner of the house and board member, Aubrey Leeuw, gave them two days last week to move out. He said he wanted to use the house for his own organisation.

"We had to split the children into two groups," Gunguwo said. "Some are living in my house, and the others with a caregiver at her house.

"Those who were taken from their parents were returned to them in Hillbrow."

Gunguwo said they started experiencing financial problems when Mhlongo was in hospital before he died.

"Leeuw promised to assist us financially until we were back on our feet and were able to buy the house," he said.

"An American company wanted to buy the house for us but Leeuw said the house was no longer for sale since they were going to use it for a new organisation they were starting."

But Leeuw denied throwing Gunguwo and the children out.

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