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| In the streets of "France", a slum outside Pietermaritzburg - Photo: W. Kehl |
The mountains of the South African province of KwaZulu-Natal in the coastal region of the Indian Ocean differ greatly from how Europeans imagine Africa. They are lush, green and experience a lot of rain. Right in the middle of this splendour lies the political and administrative centre of the province, Pietermaritzburg. Almost 460,000 people live here according to the official figures. Whether or not these figures are correct is hard to tell, for on the outskirts of the city lies a district called "France", home to some 200,000 people. "France" is a so-called "informal settlement", a sprawling, unregistered shanty town with hardly any infrastructure. People here live on the edge of society, at minimum subsistence level. Society does not like to be made aware of such slums too much, because their existence is often linked to problems that are so big that many prefer to push them to the back of their minds. The main problem here is HIV/AIDS. You don't come across many middle-aged people here. Many lie suffering in their huts, many have died. Every family has loved ones who have passed on, leaving behind the very old and the very young to fend for themselves. The children are often completely on their own, sometimes there is a grandmother to take them in.
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Singlel mothers in "France" are struggeling with harsh living conditions
Photo: W. Kehl |
For more than ten years now, an average of 130 children have been living in an SOS Children's Village on the outskirts of Pietermaritzburg. Taking the village as a starting point, social workers have set up a network of volunteers in "France" in an effort to provide care for the children there as well. The point of this "SOS family help" is to stabilise families at risk to the point that the children can stay with their parents or relatives and do not end up on the streets. There are many ways of helping and the project leader, Nobuhle Ndawonge sums up the measures as follows: "It's not about receiving handouts, it's about empowerment, about the families being able to take charge of their lives again".
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| Agricultural training for women - Photo: W. Kehl |
Nobuhle's working day starts with the "Garden Project" on the edge of the children's village, where there are two large greenhouses. Here, a group of single mothers from "France" learn to grow tomatoes and other vegetables to sell on the market. The women learn to start believe in themselves again and to rise and meet the challenge of providing their families with a safe place to live and relative material stability, in spite of the setbacks they encounter. The social workers in Nobuhle's team not only show the women how to do simple crafts and skills, they give them hope, strength and confidence in finding a way out of poverty. Here, the mothers experience the feeling of being worth something for the first time in a long while. Around noon, Nobuhle drives over to "France" to visit other families. There is the hut of the 17-year-old Camilla, who lives here with her little brother. Their mother died of AIDS three years ago, their father made off as soon as he heard the diagnosis. Nobuhle and her colleagues support Camilla by bringing her food, but more importantly with advice and practical help, to keep Camilla and her brother from losing sight of what is most important when faced with the burden of everyday life: finishing school and receiving professional training. While she cooks for her brother and herself, she explains how she wants to become a social worker one day. In a way, she is already a social worker.
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| Taking care of five grandchildren - Photo: W. Kehl |
Just a bit further down the hill stands hut number 5321. All the huts are numbered here. This is the home of an old woman who lives with three girls and two boys between the ages of three and ten. They are her grandchildren. Right in the middle of her account of her life story, rendered in her native tongue, suddenly there are shreds of English: "2000, 2001, 2003, 2004, 2006 and 2006". Nobuhle translates the unfathomable: these are the years her children died, all have fallen victim to AIDS. After the death of her children, life presented her with the task of raising yet another generation. While listeners still stand dumbfounded by the enormity of her tale, she rearranges her red checked headscarf, stirs the pot of rice on the stove and continues to tell her story, laughing as she goes, her spirit unbroken.
The rice and other basic foodstuffs came from the people at the SOS Children's Village. Nobuhle, her colleagues and the old woman discuss what the family needs to be able to live with dignity and lead a modest family life. Food, tuition fees and school uniforms have a certain price - the time and attention given to listening to the family's troubles is invaluable. The old woman utters her hope that the children will stay together, finish school and perhaps one day enlarge the little hut so that it is not quite as cramped anymore.
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| The knitting machine really makes a difference - Photo: W. Kehl |
Another hut now houses a little cooperative, consisting of a used knitting machine SOS Children's Villages bought together with the people here and the five families that use it to produce sweaters, caps and scarves to secure the livelihood of their 20 children.
The SOS family help currently supports 180 families with 467 children in "France". In 25 of these families, the parents have died, leaving the children to fend for themselves. In total, 42 families are led by the grandmother and 83 families are being taken care of by relatives of the deceased parents. In 77 families, the parents are still alive but very ill, being cared for by their children. These are just a few figures, but they are figures that we can connect to actual occurrences and individual fates. They help us put faces to the dying and their families. Who has the power of imagination to grasp what lies behind the figures of an HIV/AIDS statistic for all of South Africa? The individuals behind these figures become anonymous numbers in a statistic. Who can really picture what it means when the statistics say that eleven million children living in sub-Saharan Africa have lost their parents? Every day, 6,000 people die of AIDS in Africa, 600 in South Africa alone. This means that every 50 days, the equivalent of the population of an average small town in Western Europe dies.
The support SOS Children's Villages gives to countless families in the many slums of Africa contributes to development goals on the continent; the approach the organisation adopts in its work are congruent with the foremost developmental goal of Germany's government: the fight against poverty.
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| Children from "France" need protection and chances to grow up in a supportive environment - Photo: W. Kehl |
The staff members of SOS Children's Villages South Africa and the families they support show us that the fight against HIV/AIDS must go on. SOS Children's Villages has broadly expanded its traditional approach of giving children who have lost their parents a new family: it is not just about protecting the childhood of children who have lost their parents, it is also about supporting families at risk of falling apart and keeping children from losing that most precious thing they have: the protected space within a family. Poverty is a threat to families, and that is why SOS Children's Villages has taken up the fight against poverty: for the sake of the children. SOS Children's Villages is planning to expand its support for families - not just in Africa, but wherever children are at risk of being robbed of their childhood as a result of violence, disease or poverty. SOS Children's Villages combines developmental work with one firm conviction: it is possible to create families, and it is possible to save them. And children need a family.
Written by Wolfgang Kehl, co-worker of SOS Children's Villages Germany.