About

At Arise, we believe that every child created by God deserves to be part of a thriving family. We create professionally taught and facilitated therapeutic and support groups for both children and adults.

Our Mission

  • To provide holistic support to existing families by providing family strengthening interventions, as we believe stronger families are the foundation for a stronger society.
  • To promote the creation of new families for those children who find themselves without, by advocating for permanency through adoption conferences and adoption support programmes.
  • To develop and train other professionals and community workers in our unique programmes to collaborate and ensure further impact for family strengthening nationwide.

Our Goals:

  • To ensure high-quality evidence-based services for all families.
  • To build resilience in families to overcome the many adversities faced in our country.
  • To strongly advocate for children who have no families.
  • To work in collaboration and in partnership with other organisations and financial partners to see children in thriving families.

History of Arise

Arise was birthed in 2007 out of U-Turn (homeless ministry), after seeing the plight of vulnerable children living on the street. Arise then birthed their Family Centre Model in Heideveld which worked with children and families facing many crises for many years through various interventions from literacy programmes, individual counselling, outreach programmes and adoption conferences.

Over the years, Arise has taken strategic decisions to ensure that we have a deeper impact and wider reach ensuring that we take in consideration a whole family approach as well as integrating all 3 of our services to meet our vision. We believe that family engagement is in key in long lasting change. Though many of children have many risk factors which contribute to behavioural challenges. Though many of our children are exposed to many risk factors, we know with the right protective factors our children can still thrive despite the circumstances that they are living in.

Three protective factors that can improve child outcomes that is:

  • One caregiver that can give them parental resilience including a nurturing environment;
  • Basic resources to complete school;
  • Caregiver needs support & care.

For this reason, our model incorporates strength-based and resilience building interventions, focused on developing the bond between children and their caregivers.

The issues we work that we address as an organization are complex. Our faith tells us that human beings are created in the image of God, and that we should all use our power, skills and resources for the good of all. So we have hope and confidence that God is with us, revealing to us good ways of living human life together. We have the gift of hope and also the responsibility to keep working and praying for God’s will to ‘be done on earth as in heaven’.

Based in Cape Town, Arise is uniquely positioned to impact existing families in resource-poor communities around the city and where family preservation is not possible, we work nationwide to promote new families through adoption and foster care psychosocial education workshops and conferences. Our collaborative model is based around partnerships with community organisations, delivering a high-quality holistic service to families. Through therapeutic and psychosocial groups, a unique Family Conference Service that creates resilience in families, and both formal training and informal coaching of community lay counsellors, Arise serves the community on all levels.

Our team of psychologists, social workers, counsellors and volunteers are able to deliver high-quality, evidence-based intervention at no or low cost to participants through financial partnerships with individuals and organisations that share our conviction that stronger families are the foundation for a stronger society. Our family-based therapeutic programmes work to address common issues of abuse, neglect, addiction, depression, anxiety, and the effects of trauma in resource-poor communities.