Thandanani Centre Brothers of Charity Services 1282 views

Thandanani centre, a nonprofit organisation, is a residential facility based in the Westrand for adult persons diagnosed with a mental disorder (psychiatric). The centre offers rehabilitation services to their residents and helps them re-integrate back into society as independently as possible.

FOUNDER of THE BROTHERS OF CHARITY- Peter Joseph Triest was born in Brussels in 1760. When he was ordained, the region that is known as Belgium today was living through very turbulent times. Moved by Jesus' words: "In truth I tell you, in so far as you did this to one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did it to me" (Mt. 25, 40), Joseph started devoting more and more of his time to the poor. In 1803, he founded his first congregation within the first few months after his arrival: The Congregation of the Sisters of Charity of Jesus and Mary. Their duty was to take care of outcasts and poor children. In 1806 he was appointed as member of the Poor Relief Committee in Ghent. It was in that function that his pastoral inspiration started to really grow. He devoted practically all his time to the elderly, the poor, the mentally ill, and to foundlings or, in other words, to those in whom society did not seem to take any interest. In 1807 he founded the Congregation of the Brothers of Charity. The Brothers' duties consisted primarily in nursing the impoverished elderly and mental patients. In 1825 he founded the Brothers of St John of God who had to nurse the poor in their homes. One year before he died, in 1835, he founded the Sisters of the Childhood of Jesus who had to look after foundlings. Thandanani Centre is a Brothers of Charity Service founded in 2001.