Our History

	History of Rena Le Lona
	Michelle Friedman’s background is in teaching, training and development, for which she has a Masters in Education. Her work incorporated the element of emotional healing, whether it was training Matriculants or Post Graduates in the early ‘80’s or corporate staff in 2004. In 2005 she accepted the position of Manager at Wits Medical School for a research team, Birth to Twenty. This is a longitudinal study of 3000 families across the spectrum of South Africa, starting from the release of Nelson Mandela in 1990. It is ongoing. The operations team was based at Baragwanath hospital and there she met hundreds of children and their mothers or grandmothers. It became clear to her that the immediate need was to assist the grandmothers who were in their second term of ‘motherhood’ as their children had died of AIDS leaving them to care for their grandchildren. Michelle’s background is in the Arts. She is a published writer, a singer, dancer and actor. As a consultant, she included art, writing, dance and music in her seminars on personal growth and team-building for organisations, including Birth to Twenty. She noticed how quickly participants shed their past pain and began to plan their future. When a friend from Seattle, Washington, USA, Tom Seeberger, visited South Africa in 2005, he was moved by the children. Before his return to the States Tom asked Michelle what she’d most like to do. She said she’d like a centre for orphaned children who would be able to heal their emotional trauma through song, dance, drama, music, and art. Tom said "You find the children and I’ll find the money." Setting to work immediately, Michelle met Joy Sephton and they set up a meeting with Johannesburg Child Welfare to find out how they could assist the already high number of AIDS orphans. At that meeting Michelle agreed to take over a building in Zone 6, Diepkloof, Soweto and start her own NGO. Susan Rammekwa, a director of JCW, guided Michelle along her first steps which were to interview local principals of Junior Primary schools and find out if there was a need for such a centre.
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