Eastern Province children’s home records now securely managed

Eastern Province Child and Youth Care Centre is set to benefit from free records management services from Metrofile Records Management Eastern Cape – a group company of JSE-listed Metrofile Holdings Limited (JSE:MFL) – allowing the non-profit organisation to securely store and access all children’s records.

Eastern Province Child and Youth Care Centre provides a caring and safe home for 104 orphaned children of all races between the ages of 4 and 18 years old and aims to support the children and their families to develop their maximum potential through therapeutic interventions and skills training.

According to Brett Harris, General Manager at Metrofile Records Management Port Elizabeth, the organisation has to store all past and present children’s records such as copies of birth certificates, details on educational and family history as well as medical records forever. “Given the fact that the school has been around since 1889, there were massive amounts of records that had to be stored, which resulted in the increasing requirement of physical space and the safety of the records becoming a growing concern for the centre.”

In order to assist the organisation with its records management requirements, Metrofile Records Management PE has donated 120 boxes of storage space, allowing the organisation to retrieve any records at any time for free, along with the donation of a brand new copier.

Terry Hattingh, Director at the Eastern Province Child and Youth Care Centre, says children who had left the home once would often return to request their records after a considerable length of time. “Without a system in place, we would battle to find them. Now with this generous donation of records storage services from Metrofile this will no longer be a problem as every child’s records will be filed, indexed and stored, enabling any record to be requested at any time. This will save a significant amount of employee time and will also guarantee the safety of these vital records.”

In order to celebrate the donation, a handover with the children took place on the 15th of March 2013 with drinks and snacks sponsored by Finro, a wholesaler of grocery products part of the Masscash Holdings group.

“We are thrilled that we could assist the Eastern Province Child and Youth Care Centre with their information and records management needs because everyone deserves the right to have their personal information stored and managed in a safe and reliable environment,” concludes Harris.