The first Place of Safety houses were built or reconstructed in 2005. Then the first children were taken in and the first employees were hired by THABANG Children’s Home Trust. Today, the project, managed by Linda Grobler, is a well-established and well-known institution in Limpopo. The Place of Safety houses were registered by the Department of Social Development in 2007 and since then, are known as Child & Youth Care Centres. The girls’ and boys’ centres merged onto one site in 2016 and now house 32 children altogether in the Klipgat area, which falls under the Thabazimbi municipality.

In 2015 The Thabang Children’s Home Trust initiated an NPC, Non-Profit Company called Thabang Children’s Project. The Trust is the safeguarding entity for the NPC, which is the operating entity for all the Thabang activities.

Thabang Children’s Home Trust also operated a care centre in the “Smasher Block” informal settlement. Most homes are made of corrugated iron. More than 20,000 people live there, and poverty, unemployment and HIV are widespread.

In 2004, the work here was under the name of the Thabang Community Care Centre, a sub-entity of the Trust. This community centre operated an HIV/Aids programme to support the people who needed medical attention and care.  This enabled many parents or guardians to become stronger and healthier and hold onto life itself. Remaining alive and becoming stronger, allowed them to care for their children. There are many stories of how clients through the support of Thabang, managed to ‘regain’ their lives and then be available for their dependent children. 

When the local clinic started to issue Antiretroviral Treatment to the many suffering from HIV/Aids, then Thabang focused directly on the vulnerable children of the area.

THABANG currently supports 50 children in the Thabang Drop-In-Centre, an afternoon care service for schoolchildren within Smasher Block. This centre also supports extra families, who are very needy although their children do not attend the Drop-in centre. The support is usually food parcels or other necessities as required.

The  Thabang Children’s Home Trust  was founded in August 2004 with the financial support of the German businessman Egon Mauss. Egon connected with Viveka Ansorge, Martin Schulte Frohlinde from Germany, Cecil and Tessa White from the Thabazimbi area. This group began with the planning and pioneering work under the wing of the Trust. Right from the beginning they constantly connected with the local community. 

The first phase was surveying the needs of the people in the informal settlement of Smasher Block. This settlement was made of over 20 000 people living under very poor circumstances close to Amandelbult Platinum Mine where migrant workers seeked for work far from their homes. Thanks to the initiative of the Thabang Children’s Home Trust, a local day clinic was established in June 2005 close to the Thabang Community Care Centre. A community garden, home based care and a weekly support group was established as well as regular soccer training for local kids.