Home is Where the Heart is

The tragic story of the the family in Munsieville recently burned out of their shack home (http://projecthopeukmunsieville.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/homeless-in-munsieville.html), highlights once again, so many of the challenges facing the community of this and other South African townships. Once more, the importance of The Thoughtful Path: Munsieville is graphically demonstrated.

The family is typical of many within Munsieville: a mixed, extended family quite different from the western "norm"; Grandma and Grandpa, three grandsons, one of whom is an orphan and the other two placed with their grandparents because their own parents can no longer care for them; and then a lodger from their home village (possibly related), given sanctuary by this compassionate family.  They all lived together in their decrepit two-room tin shack, squeezed between others on the rocky hillside of the exposed informal settlement (squatter camp). Similar, grandparent-led households are common in Munsieville, often reflecting the desperate reality of families where parents have been lost to AIDS, and poverty-driven migration.

At a time of life when most look forward to taking life just a little easier, loving grandparents like these are forced to rise to the biggest challenge of their lives. Extra mouths to feed; growing numbers to house in their tiny, freezing shack (this is winter in South Africa); all at a time when their own health may be failing. The South African Constitution affords them many "rights", but so often, these are at best aspirational, as resources are thin and the "safety net" is thread bear and moth-eaten, inadequate for the vast needs of this mineral-rich nation.

Over the past decade, international NGOs and western governments have turned their back on the apparently wealthy Gauteng Province, focusing their efforts on the poorer rural areas on Limpopo, Kwazulu Natal and Eastern Cape, but the reality is that for years, there has been mass migration from the rural villages to the peri-urban areas surrounding the major cities like Johannesburg. The poverty of the villages has transferred to the informal settlements - there are now approaching two hundred of
them around Johannesburg alone.

The family at the centre of this desperate story illustrate so many of the facets of the problems facing South Africa:

1) They have come to the settlement from elsewhere in a search for the illusive "better life". Then others from their village have followed them, including the man who allegedly destroyed their home, threatening their lives.
2) They lived in an awful, cramped shack, incapable of keeping out the rain, the cold, the rats and any intruder that decides to enter. Though the loss of the shack is a catastrophe for the family, it did contain many major threats to the safety and security of the children and absolutely no privacy. (One of the most important initiatives currently being implemented by The Thoughtful Path programme is to improve the safety of all shacks, for the sake of the children being raised within them).
3) The threat of violence and abuse to children living in these situations often comes from within the household - abuse by strangers is comparatively rare. One in five children reports personal experience of serious abuse. In this case, sexual abuse is not being alleged, but it is alleged that the children were specifically included in the death threat to the family by the lodger who, it is claimed, was responsible for burning down the home. (Project HOPE UK is taking a leading role this week in Child Protection Week in Munsieville - campaigning to make the township a zero-tolerance place for abuse and abusers).
4) With few available jobs, and mass unemployment amongst shack-dwellers, poverty bites hard. This family faces an enormous challenge to re-establish their home. Economic activity has to increase, so the Thoughtful Path Community Strengthening Hub is vital, promoting savings and micro-credit, small enterprise and active involvement in the community of local employers, so they can see the benefits of employing those who have most to gain from working hard.
5) Orphans and other vulnerable children need somewhere to turn when they are in crisis. Already traumatised by the loss of parents and then subjected to an arson attack and possible attempted murder, at least the children in this story have the care of loving grandparents. Many do not - there are many child-led orphan households in Munsieville. (Since December 2011, all children have the benefit of a place to run in an emergency - the Munsieville Children's Embassy. And soon, there will be a 24/7 crisis line based at the Children's Embassy, so services can be mobilised in minutes to support and protect the most needy children in the community).

The driving passion of the Thoughtful Path: Munsieville is that all children be afforded the opportunity to grow into health, productive adults. The recent events for this family illustrated just how difficult it is right now for many to receive that opportunity. But, little by little, step by step, together we are building a future of hope for children in the township and beyond.