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Mihlali (4), Anela (6) and Siya (7) live in the nearby community of Soweto on Sea and attend Sunday School at the Centre each Sunday. Our community volunteers picked up that something was not right and so did a home visit after dropping off all the other children.

To make a long storey short:– To begin with, their mother is only 22 years old! Her mother (the kids’ grandmother) died nine years ago (HIV/AIDS) and the week before the visit her father (the kids’ grandfather) died from TB compounded by HIV/AIDS! Other than the grandfather’s state pension, there has been no other income into the home.

To make matters worse, the grandmother never had any documents (ID, etc), when she died, her daughter has not been able to get her documents and so the children also do not have any form of ID and therefore cannot get government child support grants.

This is a really complicated situation and, yes, we may think that people live with the consequences of their decisions/actions but many of us simply do not realise the depth of personal destruction Apartheid metered out (the repercussions of which we do still live with today) and, more importantly, Mihlali, Anela and Siya did not choose where they are today but they bear the brunt of so much injustice.

This coming week we are helping with the funeral and we have brought our partnership with CMR (a social work organisation) into play to help get all their affairs in order so that they can qualify for their government support grants and, until then, they will be receiving a weekly food parcel from the Centre and whatever other help we are able to give.

This is where all the activity and effort counts - by the grace of God, turning the lives of kids like this around!

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