As a severe municipal and state funding shortfall forces emergency refuges across South Africa to permanently shutter their doors, Johannesburg's Frida Hartley Shelter (FHS) is relying on private partnerships to keep their doors open, expand their reach, and protect vulnerable families.
Located in Yeoville, the facility provides refuge for up to 50 women and children at a time, who are escaping gender-based violence, domestic abuse, and severe socio-economic hardship. Beyond offering immediate shelter, FHS prioritises long-term self-sufficiency through targeted training and life-skills programmes.
"We strongly believe that if you know better, you do better," said Cheryl Hlabane, operations director at FHS. "We are very big on skills development and making sure that the women who come out of here come out whole and have been empowered, so that they are able to take care of themselves."
Hlabane attributes the shelter’s continued operation to their independence from state subsidies.
“We are looking at extending our capacity, just purely because a lot of shelters have shut down due to a lack of funding — there's a huge funding crisis,” Hlabane explained.
“We are lucky because we don't get funding from the government. If we did, we would be shut down by now. We are privately funded through strategic partners and other funding efforts.”
Those strategic partners include private entities and philanthropic foundations, such as the Temba Bavuma Foundation, who have have stepped in to bridge the gap. Earlier this week, Proteas Test Bavuma visited the shelter via his organisation, spending time raising awareness and personally assisted in preparing and distributing lunch to children in the local community.
Beyond housing internal residents, FHS has increasingly acted as a local lifelines — offering community food drives and emergency utility access during municipal power and water outages.
Founded in 1922, FHS has spent over a century rebuilding broken lives. Reflecting on the shelter's historic legacy, Hlabane praised their recent educational victories, noting that structured training is mandatory for all residents.
"One of the mandatory things here is you have to get advanced computer training, if you don't already have it," Hlabane said.
“We now have more than a handful of graduates. We currently have two kids who are studying chemical engineering at UCT. We have one in KZN studying accounting, and we have another studying accounting at UJ.
"We are very big on skills development, because once women are able to take care of themselves, they don't find themselves in vulnerable situations.”
Bavuma, meanwhile, has been a part of FHS's journey since 2020 after establishing his foundation in 2016.
"Something that started just purely as a vision has borne a lot of fruit," Bavuma said, of his foundation.
"Through our educational programme, we've got individuals who have graduated, gone to tertiary institutions, who are accountants, who are legal practitioners. We've got individuals who have also gone on from the cricket side to become professionals.
"Now it's more a thought of how do we enhance and scale up our projects, how do we get a lot more academics or sportsmen within our bursary programmes, how do we provide a lot more resources to our sporting programmes?
"If you look at the support that we have within the foundation — guys like KFC, Skechers, SuperSport, Steyn City — I think that is a strong indicator that the foundation is in a good position."