Meet Alberton Child Welfare’s new ambassador
"I want to make the kids' lives easier and 'show them the ropes', for example, I didn't have a bank account until the age of 18 when I started my first job.
ALBERTON Child Welfare has a new ambassador, the lovely Hermiena van Loggerenberg.
Van Loggerenberg (25) is no stranger to the system as she herself went through the trials and tribulations that accompanied the years of being taken from her mother’s care and fostered out to different families.
The young woman has no idea where she was born, but she says she remembers her time in Alberton, moving from Rustenburg where her father had passed from drowning.
Van Loggerenberg works as a graphic designer at Tekkie Tax, a fundraising campaign that raises funds for various charities and non-profit organisations across the country.
“I was six years old when I entered the system. With the help of my aunt and Alberton Child Welfare, I was removed from my mother’s care,” said Van Loggerenberg.
“Over the years I was sent to live with families on three separate occasions and I lived at a children’s home in-between. I was adopted twice and had two stints with ‘weekend parents’ but at the age of 16 I had made peace with the fact that the children’s home was now my home and I asked them not to place me anywhere else again,” she added.
The soft-hearted young woman said she feels honoured to have been named Alberton Child Welfare’s ambassador and that she is looking forward to helping children find their feet.
“I want to make the kids’ lives easier and ‘show them the ropes’, for example, I didn’t have a bank account until the age of 18 when I started my first job. I was so afraid the bank would take my money. I didn’t know any better,” she said.
On advice for any child who may find themselves in the same position, Van Loggerenberg said: “It’s important to accept your past, focus on the future and believe in yourself, work hard to improve yourself, grab every opportunity you’re given, set yourself goals, stay humble and make a promise to yourself to be a success.
“A quote I live by is: ‘You are influenced by what you’re exposed to, but you become what you choose to’,” she said.
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