Special Care For Special Ones

Megan Sithole’s business offers babysitting services for parents with children living with disabilities

- Naledi Shota

SHE saw her mother becoming less and less social. She couldn’t go to funerals, weddings or family parties. She became homebound – all because she had a special needs child.

So Megan Sithole decided to do something about it – not just to help her mother, but also other moms who might be going through the same thing. She opened a business specialising in babysitting children with disabilities.

Her five-year-old brother was diagnosed with autism a few years ago, and that’s when Megan’s mom’s life changed. “She couldn’t go anywhere, basically. So sometimes we took turns and she went where she needed to go while I looked after my brother, and other times I went out while she was at home with my brother,” Megan says.

This bothered the 23-year-old from Tembisa, Ekurhuleni, because parents with children with special needs also need leisure time.

THE BRIGHT IDEA

It was when she was babysitting her baby brother and the child of her mother’s friend – who also has special needs – that it clicked that she could make a business out of babysitting children with disabilities.

“I thought, ‘What do other parents go through if my mom is going through this?’ And I feel for parents to be able to raise their kids they also need time off and they need people to help. So I thought, ‘I’m here, why can’t I do this and help other parents out there?’,” she says.

And that’s how Megg’s 24/7 Babysitting Services for Kids Living with Disabilities was born.