Help
I felt overwhelmed and tired coming home today.
Noluthando asked me to “listen” to a young woman of 25 today. She has been caring for her two younger sisters since 2007 when her mother died. She now has a 3-year-old who is attending Khanya.
The young woman, who I will call Tami, is, like her mother, from Lesotho. But the sisters and her little one were born in South Africa – making them South Africans. Tami has a letter from the local hospital confirming the death of her mother but no death certificate. She has a clinic card for her small child but nothing, no birth certificates or letters, about the birth of her two sisters. She knows the date of her youngest sister’s birth but is not even sure of the year of the older sister’s birth.
Tami had been working but has lost her job and is now destitute. She is selling vetkoek (bread dough pieces fried in oil) to earn a very small amount, but this is not even providing the family with enough to eat. She went to the social workers but they said they could not help her. Perhaps they did not know how to help – or are so overwhelmed by all the sad stories that they cannot manage everything.
I have contacted a lawyer friend and will help and advise – and we will go from there. And someone from Africa Food for Thought will be providing for the little ones until we can help them to get their birth certificates and proof of SA citizenship. But it may still be a rather bumpy road ahead for the struggling family...
It is a privilege to be someone who can help – and to work in a situation where one is aware of people’s difficulties – but a huge worry as well because although the children will hopefully now not go hungry for the present because of Flying Children and Africa Food for Thought, the truth is that we need money to continue to be in the position to help. And Flying Children is still very much looking for financial backing!