Support Children Orphaned by Aids in South Africa

Swa Vana Children’s Project is a community-based organization meeting the needs of five hundred orphaned and vulnerable children in the Huntington region of Limpopo province, close to the Paul Kruger Gate of the Kruger Park.  The region is large, under-resourced in terms of infrastructure and the people live in simple dwellings alongside dusty sand roads.  Hidden beneath the rustic, peaceful atmosphere of the place one finds evidence of real poverty and desperation, particularly when one enters a home where there are no adults.  These child-headed households are the legacy of the HIV/AIDS epidemic that swept through the region for twenty years.

AIDS systematically destroyed thousands of families, taking away one or both parents and leaving the children to fend for themselves.

Pontso Natoi is Swa Vana’s project leader.  “Our aim is to provide for the basic needs of the orphaned and vulnerable children of our region.  Our care-workers deal with them in their homes, providing emotional and spiritual support, counselling and practical help with their everyday lives.  At our drop-in centres, we give the children a meal after school, assistance with homework, computer literacy lessons and general life-skills training,” she explains.

In addition, the organization helps to get the official identity documents required for them to secure child grants from the government.  Given the red tape involved in getting the children ID’s, this is often a long and frustrating process, but the Swa Vana workers stick to it.

Given the size of the area, Swa Vana has established two satellite centres that cater for children living far away from Huntington.  “We have to go to where the children are.  They cannot come to us.  One of our strengths is the location and sophistication of these satellite drop-in centres,” says Pontso.

These are at Lilydale and Justicia.  At the Justicia centre, Swa Vana has partnered with a local church, which provides the basic infrastructure and facilities.  Penny and Margaret are the regional co-ordinators and they are supported by three cooks and two after-school care-workers.  A gardener on site looks after a substantial vegetable garden and the centre also boasts four laptops for computer instruction.

125 children are fed a meal here every day, an enormous task that keeps the cooks busy and the kitchen humming. 

Lilydale is another few kilometres deeper into the area.  Like Justicia, it is a fully-independent care centre with its own staff and kitchen facilities and provides the same meals, homework assistance and computer training as Huntington and Justicia.

Pontso is pleased that the organization has such a broad reach.  “After small beginnings in 2004, we are now far bigger, thanks to our wonderful donors, including the Starfish Foundation.  I would not be satisfied with just one centre in such a large area.  The children need us everywhere, so we have to go to them.  Very often, the meal we provide is the only proper food they will get all day.  For our kitchen workers, it’s tough, but it’s a labour of love and they do it gladly.”

The drive back to Huntington takes fifteen minutes on the dusty roads, but suddenly this is not a problem.  Why?  Because this is a distance that the needy children of Justicia and Lilydale do not have to walk to get their essential support from Swa Vana.

“One of the biggest challenges facing child caregivers in the Bushbuckridge region is obtaining valid identity documents for them.  It sounds like a minor issue, but it’s not.  Very often, the absence of an ID can mean that a child ends up in poverty, having to be cared for by a charity.”

Pontso Natoi is the project leader of Saw Vana, a charity based in the area and supported by the Starfish Foundation.  She and her team care for about five hundred children.  She explains the problem, “To access the government’s childcare grant of R350 per month, a child needs to have a valid ID, but there are strict rules about this.  We need the mother’s identity document and often this is not available.”

A case in point is Elvira, who came to South Africa as a refugee from Mozambique many years ago.  Swa Vana’s in-house social worker, Mary-Jane Sibuyi, explains.  “This is a very sad case.  Elvira fled Mozambique and arrived here destitute from Mozambique with her mother.  Since then she has had three children whose father has disappeared.  The eldest son is nineteen but intellectually disabled.  He goes to a special school.  The other two children, aged twelve and nine, are at a regular school.  Because Elvira is not a South African citizen, her children are unable to get ID’s, even though they were born here.  We even have clinic cards to prove their birthplace.  There is no income in the family and they rely totally on Swa Vana.  We pay for the oldest boy’s special needs education and provide the other children with school uniforms, a daily post-school meal and assistance with homework.  Swa Vana is effectively the family’s lifeline.”

We go to the family home in the remote region of Bushbuckridge, close to the Paul Kruger Gate of the Kruger National Park.  The road is wide and dusty and the simple dwelling sits on a large patch of sand behind a basic fence made out of branches and wire.  There is an outside toilet protected by a few sheets of corrugated iron.  There is no running water and residents have to walk a long way with buckets to a communal tap.  Occasionally a water tanker arrives, courtesy of the local council.

The children are at school, but Elvira and Maria are at home.  The women stand outside and speak for a while.  Their faces tell the story of a continual struggle to survive, to feed the family, to cope with the son’s disability.  There is no quality of life here, no light in their eyes.  No real hope.

Mary-Jane talks about the future.  “We won’t give up.  Swa Vana has excellent links with the Department of Social Development and we expect to eventually get the identity documents for the children and after that the child and disability grants.  That will put them onto their feet financially.  We will never stop supporting the children, but we will then be able to spend money on another needy family.”

It is a cycle that the Swa Vana women have been through many times.  “Without us, these people would be suffering even more and without Starfish, we would not be able to help them,” says Pontso.

We say goodbye to Elvira and Maria.  Their gratefulness is obvious.  It’s that gratefulness that keeps the Swa Vana people going.  That and the smiles on the faces of the dozens of children getting their daily meal back in Swa Vana’s Huntington centre.