Our story

In 2003 Sophia Warner, founder of Pebbles, came to South Africa from the United Kingdom with a 13-year background in special needs teaching. Pebbles was started in 2004 with the main emphasis on children with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Disorders (FASD). After a lot of research our project scope grew to support the development of every child, regardless of his or her ability or disability.
Much is dependant on funding, our staff capacity and geographic location but please give us a call. We love taking on new projects and appreciate your willingness to take the first critical step by making an effort to find out if and how we can help.
Our fee structure is calculated according to individual farm needs and unique project requirements.
Pebbles has a range of monitoring and evaluation processes to measure the positive impact of our work on the children. These include meticulous goal setting and tracking each child’s academic performance, among others.
Proper diagnosis requires a team of medical specialists. While we are aware that a number of our children are affected by alcohol, and sometimes even display the known symptoms of FASD, we do not diagnose. Instead we track the progress of each individual child. When a child demonstrates a barrier to learning or a specific learning disability we put in place the relevant support system for that child.
We see ourselves spreading geographically and taking on new farms (not just wine farms) throughout South Africa. Moreover, we want to introduce an even wider range of services for our beneficiaries, such as a leadership centre, a special school and a dedicated place of safety.
Pebbles is registered as an NGO in the United Kingdom (UK), which allows us to access donations from the UK for our various project initiatives here in South Africa. A large number of our individual and corporate donors are based in the UK.
We are currently supporting over 1500 children aged 0 – 24 years, their parents, extended families and the communities in which they live. Most of our beneficiaries live or work on Western Cape wine farms. All of our beneficiaries are previously disadvantaged.
Currently we work with wine farming communities in the Western Cape regions of Somerset West, Stellenbosch, Paarl, Wellington, Hemel-en-Aarde Valley and Citrusdal. Plans are underway to expand into other provinces in South Africa.