Umthombo Street Children is an outreach program in the coastal city of Durban.

A project run predominately by former street children, Umthombo provides Durban’s 500 street children with shelter and support, with the aim of empowering children to leave the streets and re-integrate back into their communities.

TACC’s request was that their grant would be used to provide tangible benefits to the children rather than on administration costs, and also that it would provide some fun and relief for the children in a sports related way

The result is that TACC’s grant will assist with their Safe Space and outreach and aftercare programmes:

• £20,000 on Safe Space – their rehabilitation and therapeutic centre and shelter for street children, which is in need of extension and refurbishment, plus hot meals and drinks for the children.

• £10,000 on street-based football, surfing and arts programmes plus outreach and aftercare

• Plus an all day party for street children during the world cup

Our second initiative is working with an Oxfam backed outreach programme, "Let us Grow", which supports orphaned children, based in a settlement of 1.7m just south of Johannesburg called Orange Farm. TACC will donate £30,000 to the children of this inspiring project.

The number of orphans in South Africa is growing. UNAIDS estimates the total at two million, half of whom have lost their mother, father or both parents to AIDS. About 40,000 households, headed by children, receive home and community-based care, but thousands more are not reached.

The problem in Orange Farm is exacerbated by the fact that people come to stay in Orange Farm and no-one knows about them or their families. A couple of months later, they succumb to AIDS and die leaving children without anyone to look after them.

Many children do not have birth certificates and so are not eligible for social grants. Others are not even aware that they are entitled to assistance. Most orphans are taken care of by extended families, many of whom are themselves struggling under the strain, especially those headed by elderly people and women who already live in poverty. School enrolment rates for orphans and other vulnerable children living in poorer households tend to be lower than for other children.

Let us Grow supports children who have been brought to Orange Farm by parents or grandparents who know they will soon die of HIV, Aids and TB related illnesses. The children are then left to fend for themselves, and often for their brothers and sisters.

Let us Grow gives the children treatment, food parcels, clothes and blankets, home-based care and counselling.

TACC’s grant will be used to fund all of these aspects of the programme, helping to feed and support over 1,000 children.

As Scotland supporters we want to leave a lasting legacy of our visit in 2010.