A Visit to the Children's Red Cross Hospital

After finishing the ride on Friday and recovering our sore and tired legs, we went to go and visit the Children's Red Cross Hospital in Rondebosch on Saturday morning.

The Children's Red Cross Hospital, beautiful view in the background!

Everyone outside the Children's Red Cross Hospital.

While completing the ride during the week, we had donations coming through thick and fast as people could really see how hard and challenging the ride was, and the efforts we were pushing ourselves to. This made our trip to the hospital even more special. We were able to say that we had raised ~745,000 RAND/~$74,000 AUD (!!!!) which has the potential to really change these kids lives with burns for the future in a huge way, as well as the lives of their families.

Visiting the hospital was a really emotional experience, and I don't think one person left with dry eyes.

We visited the ward of children with 'minor burns', being dominantly hot water burns, however this can still cover up to 60% of the children's skin. While there, Dr. Roux Martinez gave us a really insightful overview as to how and why these children are burnt, the treatment process that they go through, and also what specific areas the funds we raised will go towards being burn treatment, rehabilitation, education for families; and also tangibles such as fire recovery kits, clothing, and toiletries for families who have lost everything.

While at the hospital, we were all able to pick out a few toys and present these to the children going through burns treatment. This was a real highlight for a lot of us as we were able to see first hand just how BIG of a difference such small gestures can make. The hand knitted toys from the August Ladies Knitting Club were a real treat and a definite crowd pleaser!!

Hand knitted teddies from the Augusta Ladies Knitting Club, so cute!

When we first met the children, you could see how much pain they were in through the bandages and the look on their faces, however when presented with the toys the expression on their faces as well as their whole demeanour changed to pure happiness! Even if only for a brief moment, it appeared that the children forgot why they were in hospital, and went back to being care free and excited to play dress up with their new toys. Within minutes, all children had also named their new toys - some with bizarre choices like Clive (a very fluffy elephant).

The visit to the hospital was a really humbling experience, and also eye opening. We learnt so much about burns treatment and the fantastic job the nurses do in such conditions, but we also learnt the root cause of the majority of the burns - being poverty within local communities.

After visiting the hospital we then went for a tour around one of the local communities, Langa, to see first hand the conditions and issues these communities are living within (this will be our next and last post - a few sneaky pictures below).

One of the local shops, burnt from fire. 

Matt found a new best friend.

Before leaving however, we left a special gift with the Red Cross Hospital from Phil's very talented daughter, Suzie Loader. The picture illustrated an intricate sketch of our journey through South Africa and also the beneficiaries of the funds raised. The picture itself is amazing and a bit of a mind maze - the more you look at it, the closer your eye gets, and the more you see…

Presenting the special piece of artwork to Dr. Roux Martinez & and the team.

The amazing piece of artwork! Look closely and you'll start to see a lot more than meets the eye…

Our last and final post will be tomorrow and on the local community that we visited, Langa.

One of the children from Langa.