Thandi House

Thandi House was born from heartbreak. In 2009, after a heartbreaking number of newborn babies were being found dead in streets, gutters, and rubbish bins in Pietermaritzburg, Mark and Rene Morcom opened their home to the forgotten children of their city. The name comes from a baby girl — just one day old — found alive in a sealed plastic bag on a street corner. Thandi, meaning love in Zulu, became the face of a movement to save lives. One of the first things Thandi House installed was a baby box — a safe, legal, computerised drop-off point built into a church wall, giving desperate mothers a way to surrender a baby to safety rather than abandoning them to danger. The baby box has since brought the rate of babies found dead in public spaces to almost none.

Thandi House operates under a founding conviction: a family is forever. Unlike most children's homes, they do not turn children away when they turn 18. They care for each child as their own, for as long as that child needs them — into adulthood and beyond.

What They Offer Survivors and Children

Long-Term Family-Based Residential Care Thandi House cares for up to 25 children at any one time in a warm, family-based home where Mark and Rene serve as mother and father to every child. Children stay for as long as they need — there is no eviction at 18. The home takes in abandoned babies, children who have been raped or abused, children with physical and mental disabilities, blind children, terminally ill children, and children living with HIV/AIDS who have been medically neglected by the state system. Children are taken in as family and raised as such.

Baby Box — Safe Baby Surrender A computerised baby drop-off point, installed in a church wall, gives mothers in desperate circumstances a safe and legal way to surrender a newborn without endangering the baby's life. This quietly revolutionary intervention has effectively eliminated baby deaths in public spaces in the area since its installation.

Crisis Pregnancy Support for Young Girls Thandi House cares for young pregnant teenage girls who have no family support — providing a safe home, care during pregnancy, and support as they navigate what comes next for themselves and their baby. This is a rare and crucial service for the most vulnerable young mothers.

Specialised Medical Care Many children arrive at Thandi House on the brink of death — malnourished, immune-compromised, and denied life-saving HIV treatment. Mark and Rene fight for every child's medical care, navigating and challenging the broken state healthcare system to ensure children receive the treatment they need to survive and thrive.

Holistic Wellbeing — Nutrition, Education, and Love Children receive balanced nutrition, school education, emotional support, and the consistent love and security of a real family — with two parents who have given their lives to this work.

Thandi House accepts children from birth through adulthood. If you know of a child in crisis in the Pietermaritzburg area — abandoned, abused, terminally ill, or with no family — contact Thandi House: info@thandihouse.com or +27 33 387 0006.