History of Timion

Timion was started in November 2006 by the Swiss orthotist, Daniel Meyer and his South African wife and physiotherapist, Anika. They met while working with children with disabilities in Sierra Leone and Iraq between 1998 and 2003. After having spent a year of Bible study with YWAM they felt called to settle in South Africa with the aim to support marginalized children with disabilities. As Anika had strong links with UCSA (Uniting Christian Student Association) in Jeffreys Bay, they moved there in October 2006.

When Anika and Daniel started to assess the needs for disability, they came in contact with the very dynamic rehabilitation coordinator of District Health in Port Elizabeth, Tabiza Caga. In collaboration with her and the therapists of the clinics in Port Elizabeth and Uitenhage, Anika and Daniel started to see children with cerebral Palsy at the clinics in the townships and at the Uitenhage Provincial Hospital. Many of the children were in need of special equipment. However, government hospitals often lacked the funding or failed to procure these devices. During this time, the situation differed from one province to the next, but by 2006, many disabled children in the Eastern Cape had still not received adequate equipment. 

Daniel and Anika started a close corporation under the name of Timion Child Equipment. The choice of the company form was later proven to be a mistake because the work they were doing was purely non-profit. The funding for the project was provided by donations of friends, family and Daniel's church in Switzerland. The start-up capital of Timion came from a completed project for homeless people in Iraq that Daniel had initiated in 1998.

Daniel worked in the production of simple wooden equipment about three days per week.This took place in the backyard of the couple's flat before a garage at the campsite of UCSA was made available. Anika designed and sewed the cushion covers and upholstery for the equipment and did basic administration and record-keeping. One to two days per week Anika and Daniel traveled to  clinics, in the townships or at the Uitenhage Provincial Hospital, to see children with disabilities.

This was the year that Daniel thought it necessary to get practical support in the workshop. In the beginning, most of the help came from Zimbabwean and Zambian students of a Christian leadership school, but also, Timion received support from local people - for more than one year Irene and Stuart Bradley were investing half a day per week in the project.

In 2008 we welcomed our first Swiss volunteer, Debora Müller. She pioneered a role that helped keep Timion going - volunteer work. By the end of 2013, Timion had hosted more than 25 volunteers! Besides providing practical help, the volunteers are a moral support and let us see things with fresh eyes again. 

In the same year we started with a prayer partner program. There is always an opportunity for our disabled children to be “adopted” by prayer partners who commit to pray for the child on a regular basis. Timion then employed their first full time worker for the workshop. The work load was growing constantly.

In 2009 we had our first two camps at the UCSA campsite in Jeffreys Bay. We realized that there was a tremendous emotional need for the mothers and grandmothers of our disabled children. During the camps we are able to address this as we have the opportunity to spoil the mothers and their children for a few days.

We started to change our approach to the children. Up until this point, we had been seeing mothers and children at the clinics in the township or at the Uitenhage Provincial Hospital. However, this kept us from knowing the real circumstances of the family. We also realized that it was often difficult for the relatives to get the equipment to their homes by public transportation. From then on, we were doing home visits so that we could understand more of the background of the families.

This allowed the mothers to be more relaxed and it solved the logistical problem of transporting the equipment. By employing Oswald, Daniel now had two people helping him in the workshop.

Until then, Timion’s tools and machinery had been DIY products. Surprisingly, they had lasted the daily industrial use quite well. In 2010, Timion could buy industrial woodworking machinery for a very favourable price.

We moved! We took the workshop from the UCSA campsite car garage to the industrial area in Jeffreys Bay. We doubled our workshop space! This was also the year that the Timion association in Switzerland was founded. The members of the association were coordinating the fundraising in Switzerland and were also advising Daniel in running the project.

This was the year that Timion could employ their first occupational therapist, Elbé. On a daily basis Elbé was doing home visits with the families that we had a relationship with. Later in the year we could employ Christoffel, who as a logistician, could bring more structure to Timion’s work. He also registered Timion to become a non-profit organization.

We were again able to move to a bigger workshop. Timion needed extra administrative support and so employed a secretary half time. At this point, Timion had five staff members besides Daniel.

Anika, who had founded Timion together with Daniel, decided to formally withdraw from her work with Timion. However, she is still involved in the order process, training and in an advisory role. Timion had now become a registered non-profit company. At this time, the board members of Timion NPC were Wilbur Wright, Selmari Potgieter and Daniel Meyer. Timion also received their NPC number and Tax exempt status from SARS.

Thanks to a big and successful fundraising campaign in Switzerland, Timion could buy a VW Caddy. To date, it is used daily for the home visits and has plenty of space for equipment or people.

Timion employed a full time counsellor, Nolubabalo. She started doing home visits particularly to support the mothers emotionally and spiritually. She also coordinated the cell groups and home churches that evolved out of the camps that we held. It is Timion’s goal that after each camp there would be a support group formed that  would meet regularly.

In February, Timion got their first professional carpenter as a volunteer. Nicolas is from France and was doing his civilian service with us during this time. He helped to upgrade the skills of our workers, to improve the quality of the equipment and to increase the efficiency of the production.

Timothy started to work for Timion in this year. It has always been our dream to take on young people from a difficult background and to help them grow in their skills. It was an exciting time to have Timothy with us, seeing his growth both personally and as a carpenter.

Elbé, our long serving occupational therapist, left to work full time in Jordan and brought help to the disabled refugee children. Karlien and Anne, both South African occupational therapists, joined Timion this year. Having two permanent therapists doing home visits really increased our capacity.

We received a generous donation through caisse secours from the French Mennonite church as well as a generous donation from a Swiss family, and as result, we were able to buy a second Caddy to be used for our home visits. Having two therapists, both cars were being used daily for our home visits into the townships.

Anglican Aid, an Australian humanitarian organisation, started to financially support Timion's counselling programme for the caregivers of children with disabilities. Timion also started facilitating and supporting the founding of support groups for the caregivers in many townships. Timion were accepted as the official supplier for standing frames through the government. This 3 year contract allows us to sell standing frames to government hospitals and we hope to raise funds to suppor the project through this.

Hannah, who was already working as a physiotherapist with Timion, became our manager after Christoffel left to the Philippines. Clifford joined our production team to help us with the increased workload and worked with us till the end of 2016 before joining Elbe in the Middle-East for a season.

In this year we were accepted to host Swiss civil servants who are trained carpenters. Raphaël pioneered this role as our first Swiss civil servant.

On the 12th of February we were shaken by a tragic car accident where our volunteer Alena Hübscher died and Raphaël was severely injured. It is a very sad and difficult time, but the team and family really experienced the comfort of community and God's love during this time.

Timion has been blessed with many volunteers who all have played important roles.

In 2016 we employed Wian who is to date responsible for our CNC machine which we bought second hand. The CNC machine helps us to increase our design possibilities and precision.

Lusanda joined our team in the role of a counsellor and Vuyani joined the workshop team. 

In the Domino Sponsored Run, organized by YMCA of Basel, Timion was the main beneficiary. Enough money was raised through this event to enable Timion to build its own workshop. We are very excited and grateful for this prospect of having our own purpose-built workshop.

In the meantime, a lot of money has also been raised to start our own day care centre in one of the townships where we serve.

Security issues faced by our Outreach Team, resulted in the decision being made that a minimum of two people will go on an outreach visit.

The  production system in the Workshop was redeveloped, so that rather than a team working on one product, each member of the team produces a product for which he is totally responsible. The production team enjoyed this new approach as it gave each more ownership of their work.

The CNC production took on a greater role with the machine allowing more sophisticated designs. We designed a new posture chair for severely disabled children. Other products were remodelled.

Hannelie became our new secretary as Sammy left us to follow her calling to work more with young people and mothers.

We celebrated Timion’s tenth anniversary together with approximately 300 people in a hall in one of the townships we work in. We are grateful for the growth in Timion and God’s faithfulness to us.

Sonja and Tom Tschopp and their two children left their home in Switzerland to work long-term with Timion in Jeffreys Bay.
Sonja started craft groups with the mothers of children with Cerebral Palsy. The aim of these groups is to teach new skills, such as crocheting and sewing, while offering a platform where they can share their lives and encourage each other.
Tom set up a metal workshop to complement our wooden disability equipment,  providing metal elements where it is structurally more viable.

After more than a year of looking for a suitable place for a Day Care Centre a low cost former government house in Kwanobuhle Township, near Uitenhage, was purchased. The house was renovated and upgraded by the Timion team to meet the requirements of a day care centre.

A new Debriefing Camp was held. The Debriefing Camp gives us the opportunity to help mothers find closure, and healing from, past events that have impacted their lives negatively.

In addition to the Debriefing Camp we also conducted two Respite Camps and two Therapy Camps.

In the workshop we built our own large CNC machine in order to further improve the quality and scope of our work. The sales of wheelchair tables boosted product sales, bringing much needed income to supplement the donations.