With Mother’s Day only a few weeks away in South Africa, on 12 May, the life of five-year-old Caleb, a resident of The Domino Foundation’s Baby’s Home, is about to change for the better as he and his ‘new mum’, Ceri Pritchard, prepare for his permanent relocation to his new home in London, England.
Pritchard’s love for South Africa and its people was born over a decade ago when she spent a year in northern KwaZulu-Natal on a 12 months stint as a doctor with Mosvold Hospital in Ingwavuma, working in the paediatric ward, as well as covering the outpatient department. Now, she is back and with a very different purpose, to meet her new son, Caleb, and to get to know him as well as bond before embarking on the long trip to his new home in London.
The five-year-old has been part of the family at The Domino Foundation’s Baby’s Home since he was six months old and much has to be done before he can leave with Pritchard on the long flight to the United Kingdom. There have been many meetings with social workers, court dates, signatures to be applied to a mountain of documents, and then an application for a British passport for the young emigrant to be able to leave the country.
Pritchard said that she is on adoption leave which will cover her time in Durban and then will have several more months once the new ‘forever family’ has crossed the length of two continents and settled into Caleb’s new home in the UK.
“I will be home-schooling him to start with and then he will start the new English academic year in ‘big’ school in September. Although I am a single mum, Caleb will be joining a large extended family including 10 cousins of which he will be the second youngest,” Pritchard.
For now, Pritchard and the young man are enjoying the Durban sunshine, playing, chatting, bonding and generally getting to know each other. “The UK will be a huge change for him…the culture and environment and, of course, the weather will be very different and I am going to have to do a lot of adapting as well in other ways. It’s going to be a joint journey for both of us and we are both very excited,” said Pritchard.
Precious Thabethe, the house mother at the babies’ home, described the new development in Caleb’s life as an answer to prayers.
“There have been several issues we have had to tackle in the past few years leading up to his adoption. Those have all been solved and now Ceri’s being a doctor is an extra blessing, as Caleb has battled with eczema and asthma ever since he was born,” said Thabethe.
Pritchard is determined to use her skills to help manage and take control of those problems: “The staff at the Babies’ Home have given him a great foundation and the love and devotion is apparent.”
