Help children heal in a settled, loving home
Sparrows is a children’s home in Tarkastad in the Eastern Cape. At the moment 30 children live with us, placed by the court. Our aim is always to return each child to their family. While they are with us they have a safe home, schooling, therapy and people who care about them.
An individual partner is anyone who gives money, goods, time or a skill, once or regularly. You do not need a large amount. We value a small gift as much as a large one, and most of all the people who give month after month, because that is what we can plan around.
Ways to give
Give once
Choose R100, R250, R500 or an amount of your own, from R50, on our home page. You pay securely through PayFast. The minimum is R50 because PayFast charges a fee on every payment.
Give every month
Tell us you would like to give monthly and we will send you our bank details so you can set up a standing order. Regular gifts are what we can plan around.
Give goods
Please ask us before you buy or bring anything. We cannot accept an item that would break a standard we must meet for the children’s care, such as a mattress thinner than the required 15 cm. Where an item is useful to someone else, we pass it on to people in the community who need it.
Give a skill or some time
If you have a skill you would like to offer, tell us what it is and we will talk. Anyone who would spend time with the children goes through our safe recruitment steps first.
Give with a group or at Christmas
If your church, school or club would like to help together, see For Community Groups. For gifts at Christmas, see Christmas and Advent Giving.
Why regular giving matters
The Department of Social Development pays Sparrows R4 285 a month for each child. In 2024-2025 that came to R1 542 600 for 30 children. It covers nutrition, but the other items leave little room, and it does not fully fund salaries.
Regular contributions from individuals and businesses came to nearly R428 000 that year. They matter because salaries are not fully funded. (Source: our 2024-2025 annual report.)
Your tax deduction (section 18A)
Sparrows is a public benefit organisation (PBO 93000-5523) approved by the South African Revenue Service (SARS) to issue section 18A receipts. A receipt lets you deduct a genuine gift of money or goods, for which you receive nothing in return, from your taxable income, up to 10% of that income in the year you give. Anything above 10% carries forward to the next year.
When you ask for a receipt, we reply asking for your name, address, identity number and income tax reference number. We report every receipt to SARS.
We cannot issue a receipt for your time or professional services, a ticket to a fundraising dinner or golf day, a raffle ticket, something you bought at an auction, or school fees.
How we account for your gift
Sparrows is a registered non-profit organisation (NPO 026-901). Our financial statements are audited every year, and we record donations separately from the Department of Social Development’s payments. We thank every donor by name in our annual report, unless you ask us not to, and we never publish the value of an individual gift.
We use your name, e-mail address and message only to reply to your enquiry. How we handle personal information is set out in our Privacy Policy. Please do not put your identity or tax number in this form: we ask for what a receipt needs when we reply.