LISOF participates actively in community outreach projects. In the past, these have included collaborations with The Red Cross Children’s Hospital & the Teddy Bear’s Picnic, and the Children’s Disability Centre.

In 2009, our first-year students worked on a community project in aid of the Children’s Disability Centre. They created designer rag dolls for an auction at LISOF’s end of year fashion show. High profile celebrities from the world of fashion participated as celebrity auctioneers helping to raise R50 000 from the ‘adoption’ of the rag dolls.

This venture gave rise to the Keedo Cares Ragdoll Project.

Funds from the Keedo Cares Radgdoll Project not only assist the Children’s Ability Centre, but also Equip Skills, an . This organization that offers women in the Diepsloot area a safe place to learn and practice craft skills. O, with one of their projects focusing focuses on the manufacturing of ragdolls that are sold in Keedo stores countrywide.

The main beneficiary of the LISOF students’ collective efforts is the children and families of the Children’s Disability Centre in Braamfontein, Johannesburg. This centre caters for the needs of visually impaired and autistic learners from birth to 18 years old.

Professor Lorna Jacklin at the Department of Paediatrics at the University of the Witwatersrand says: “When I refer families to the Unit for Visually Impaired & Autistic Children at the Johannesburg hospital they are usually in despair.

When I see them for a follow-up a few months later, they have renewed sparkle. They can only speak with gratitude for the support and hope the have been given at the CDC school.”