World Street Children News :: South Africa Streetkid News

From scavenger to survivor

May 20 2008 at 02:23PM

By VIVIAN ATTWOOD.

To begin to understand what life is like for a street child, one would need to spend months building bonds of trust. All children on the streets have a profound mistrust of strangers, particularly adults.

Virtually without exception they have been subjected to neglect and abuse at the hands of those who should have cared for them.

Bulelwa Hewitt should know. The 27-year-old mother of two survived life on a waste dump, and later the streets of East London, to come full circle to the point where she and her husband, Tom, founded the Umthombo project for street children, based in Durban. The organisation is dedicated to "turning despair into hope on the streets of South Africa".

Bulelwa is highly articulate and radiates vitality; a far cry from the skinny child who sniffed benzine or thinners to ward off persistent hunger and her feelings of helplessness as she tried to raise her younger brother and sister by scavenging for scraps in dustbins.

She lavishes love on her sons, determined that they should never feel the pain of rejection she experienced.

Contemplating motherhood was a daunting prospect for Bulelwa, because she had had no role model. "I had intensive counselling when I was pregnant.I felt it was my fault that I was sexually abused as a child," she recounted.

"I used to wake up screaming in the night. ‘What happens if I raise my child the way I was raised?’ I thought. My therapist just listened while I talked and cried."

With tremendous support from her husband, Bulelwa conquered her fears, and equipped herself to be a mom by reading "just about everything ever written on the subject of childbirth and child rearing". To see her with her boys today, no one would imagine the turmoil she endured.

Discarded lives

The children’s activist was born into a community with little hope for the future, beyond finding the next drink or cigarette. Her mother and step-father lived in a makeshift shack on the edge of the East London municipal waste dump.

Bulelwa and her two younger siblings, Nosiphiwe and Bulelani, spent their days scouring the dump for anything that could be eaten or sold. Their mother kept them out of school for that purpose.

"We were scavengers, essentially. We sold cardboard, tin cans and reject sweets and made cheap alcohol from pineapples," Bulelwa said. "On Fridays, we’d go out on the streets. We slept underneath a skateboarding ramp there. On a Tuesday we’d go back to the squatter camp."

The reason the children sought the streets at weekends was simple. "Over the weekend there was a lot of drinking, and then we suffered verbal, physical and sexual abuse from neighbours," Bulelwa explained.

"We moved like that, back and forth. There were people on the street living under plastic bags and in small boxes like dog kennels. Other kids from the squatter camp joined us. We became like a family unit and looked out for one another."

Bulelwa was determined to keep Nosiphiwe away from their stepfather, who had started sexually molesting her. She has no idea how old she was when she shepherded her little band onto the streets in 1993, but estimated she was around nine.

"Things had just got too bad at home. My stepfather would beat us for mentioning our father’s name. He beat my mom too." Bulelwa had also been sexually assaulted by men in the camp by the time she made her desperate decision.

"Life on the streets wasn’t really better than on the dump, but there was more chance of finding food," she said.

"At night when the restaurants closed we would wait to grab the food they threw away. We also begged for money and then we either bought food or benzine or thinners to sniff.

"It made me see strange things, like snakes coming out of the sea, but I wasn’t scared. It sent me into a world of my own, and helped block out the past. It took away my hunger and made me bolder."

Bulelwa and her siblings were headed down a one-way road. Malnourished and substance addicted, they were bound to contract disease and die young. A fellow street child, an older youth, had been observing the little band, and intervened.

"Muntsu, as we called him, took us to a street children’s shelter close to town. He knocked on the door and left us there," she remembered.

At first the children thought they were in paradise. They were given nourishing food, warm blankets and new clothes. But the shelter was mismanaged and the food supply began to diminish. Their caregivers, too, showed little sympathy for their charges.

"As more kids came, the house mothers started to show us less warmth. When I did something wrong they would say ‘No wonder you were on the streets’. There was a total lack of understanding. Then they began to hit us. My sister was beaten because she was hungry and stole some food. It reminded me of my past."

Bulelwa left the shelter in 1998, having completed Standard 7. Although she was forced to return to the squalor of the dump, there was another guardian angel waiting in the wings.

Sister Pam van der Westhuizen, a coloured nurse, ran a soup kitchen at the dump, and took a motherly interest in Bulelwa and a group of her friends.

She would invite them home on a Sunday, where they would get a good bath, be given fresh clothes and settle down to a good meal after attending church. Her faith in Bulelwa’s potential was poured liberally onto the child’s parched spirit.

"She didn’t do what she did for any ulterior motive. She was simply a good woman," said Bulelwa. "After that, Nosipho Ntontela, who worked with children on the streets of East London, became my ‘mom’."

Bulelwa went to live with the social worker, eventually moving with her to Durban, where Nosipho became involved with an outreach programme for street kids. Today she is the office administrator for Umthombo, and the two women are as close as mother and daughter.

Scars run deep

In terms of her biological mother, Bulelwa still grapples with feelings of pain and anger. "When I was six months pregnant with my first child, in 2004, I went back to the dump to visit my mother.

"It was difficult, because I don’t have any sort of relationship with her. I have gone back since, so that the boys can have a sense of where they come from. When my mother is drunk she shouts and calls them her ‘mlungu grandchildren’. It makes me so angry and frustrated."

Bulelwa recently learned that her childhood saviour, Muntsu, had died of TB. "He couldn’t get off the streets, although he saved us. He had internalised the lifestyle," she said. "Most of the children who were my friends have died or have Aids."

Bulelwa’s younger sister, Nosiphiwe, lives in the squatter camp and has a baby. Her brother, Bulelani, is serving a 12-year jail term for being an accessory to murder.

Her mother and stepfather are still together, but she has finally been reunited with her own father, thanks to the intervention of an older brother who relocated to Cape Town when she was a child.

"My mother always maintained my father was dead, and she had no family, but I have met her relatives, and they embraced Tom and me and the children with the greatest excitement," Bulelwa said animatedly.

"It was a bit like the return of the prodigal daughter. My father cried when he heard what we had endured on the streets. We just clicked when we first met, and now I have a great relationship with him."

On a recent visit to East London, Sister Pam presented her former protégée with an album documenting, in letters and photographs, the years during which she cared for the motley little band of children from the nearby squatter camp. It is one of Bulelwa’s most treasured possessions.

Reflecting on her fractured childhood, Bulelwa shows surprisingly little rancour, yet her pain is evident. "Growing up, I didn’t get the love, support or attention that a child should receive.

"Instead, I was subjected to violence and other forms of abuse. No-one was interested in knowing what forced us out onto the street. We were seen as a nuisance

"We had to make our own little families to feel safe. The love and support within the group is so important. You are terribly frightened until you become part of the group."

The brave woman fears she will always be torn between her past and her present reality.

"There’s a chapter I can never close properly. That dump is part of who I am. Having my kids opened a new chapter, but the past is still unresolved."

Begging tools

    May 08 2008 at 12:43PM

The wheels of the truck narrowly miss the small boy crouching in the road at the confluence of Masabalala Yengwa Avenue and (NMR) and Argyle Road in Durban.

He is humming tunelessly and playing with a piece of splintered wood, pretending to be taking part in the A1 Grand Prix.

As the truck driver registers the child, and swerves to avoid him, a girl who looks no older than three is shaking an empty milk carton to elicit money from another car at the busy off-ramp.

On the other side of the four-way stop, a woman with a baby on her hip directs soulful looks at passers-by, hoping they will toss her a few coins out of sympathy for the infant.

‘To give, or not to give, is the conundrum’
Travelling along Argyle Road and other main arterial access points to the city entails running the gamut of an assortment of beggars each day. The problem is particularly acute at peak traffic times, when frustrated motorists do their best either to reach work, or get out of town and head home.

Darting between cars to beg for money is not a risk-free occupation at the best of times. With the advent of ever-younger beggars on the streets, there is a real risk these children will be injured or killed.

Appealing

Most motorists with any compassion feel torn each time they see beggar children, shoeless and ragged in appearance, appealing for assistance.

To give, or not to give, is the conundrum. Are we helping to keep young people on the street if we "encourage" them by doling out cash, or are we simply being callous when we shake our heads censoriously or pointedly look straight ahead as if we haven’t seen them?

‘Street children are entitled to their basic human rights’
Linda Treadwell, director of the I Care foundation for street children, is emphatic that well-meaning donors can only make a difference to the future of a street child if they decline to give him or her money.

She confirms that there appears to be an increased incidence of babies and toddlers being used as pawns by beggars who are often unrelated to them, but who simply "borrow" the children to elicit sympathy.

"The older children are less attractive magnets for donations, so these people are using the youngest children they can find. It’s a racket, and some young beggars are also intimidated by their peers and older children," she said.

"The small children are often not directly related to those who take them on to the streets, but are instead members of extended families, or the children of friends or neighbours."

When the Daily News photographer tried to get candid shots of children begging on Argyle Road, they invariably raised their T-shirts to cover their faces.

Treadwell explained that the children are aware a stigma adheres to what they are doing.

"Also, some are afraid of being recognised and taken back to the homes they have run away from," she said.

Dispelling the notion that all street children are unprotected waifs dumped on the streets against their will, she added: "Some of the youngsters are quite clever. They get paid a share of the spoils, and can get quite aggressive when they are reprimanded."

The I Care director is passionate about the work the foundation does in rehabilitating street children, and attempting either to return them to a family environment or find alternative shelter and education for them.

"It is no life for a child," she said emphatically.

"They are at great risk on the streets. Recently one of the kids I was working with was stabbed and killed in a fight over glue.

"The highly addictive glue the children are sold by unscrupulous dealers causes irreversible brain damage, and there have been cases of what is termed ’sudden sniffing death’.

"Children have been run over by cars and killed, and sexually transmitted diseases like HIV and Aids are rife."

Round-ups

Tom Hewitt, who has run the Umthombo (Wellness) Project for street children in eThekweni since 1998, works in close conjunction with I Care.

He says that while most archetypal street children have run away from untenable home circumstances, the issue of "borrowing" babies and children for begging is an even more problematic one to tackle.

"The women who bring their own and others’ children on to the streets to beg have been registered for welfare benefits in an attempt to stop their activities, but they come back anyway. We really need to look at finding compassionate, legal solutions."

Hewitt spoke out firmly regarding the controversial removal of street children from eThekwini during major tourism events.

"Round-ups don’t work. Street children are entitled to their basic human rights during the process of rehabilitating them and relocating them to more conducive environments," he said.

"We are here to provide their basic rights, change their behavioural patterns and empower them to make life decisions that will ensure they have a viable future.

"It has been a controversial decade," he continued.

"Durban lacks a really unified city-wide strategy for street children. The bottom line, though, is that it is not a bottomless pit. Together we can devise adequate means to deal with the issue."

His compassion evident, he said: "We have to remember they are children. They’re on our streets for a reason. They come with trauma and we can’t write them off as criminals.

"They are the most vulnerable and marginalised sector of society. They are not our problem, but rather our responsibility. In the run-up to 2010 I hope the provincial department of social development remembers the needs of these children."

Outreach

I Care is under contract to the eThekwini Municipality to run a "drop-in" centre in the city.

There is at present no reception centre, however, which makes it difficult for outreach workers to find alternative accommodation for street children.

The drop-in centre, at the corner of Victoria Embankment and Stanger street, is manned around the clock and affords a brief respite from the inhospitable city streets for frequently traumatised children.

Umthombo has a street outreach team of 10 people, and runs a mobile health unit for street children. The first of its kind, the unit is fully equipped and manned by trained paramedics and senior nurses.

"This is a real lifeline for the children, because they are not able to access healthcare through the regular channels," Hewitt said.

"Fortunately we (outreach workers) have the luxury of time on our side," he continued.

"We build bonds of trust with the kids over a long period. Most of them are initially very wary of adults."

Hewitt has known some of the street children with whom he works since they were very small.

While he is optimistic regarding the long-term prospects for rehabilitation, and maintains the problem will not spiral out of control as long as there are concerned people who have the children’s best interests at heart, his work often impacts on him in a painful way.

"We have a good track record of getting them off the streets, but the sad thing is that I am ‘outgrowing’ many of them.

"They die," he said quietly.

As a testament to the selfless work done by people like Hewitt, Treadwell and others, 18 staff within their combined organisations are former street children who have kicked addictions, gone back to school and are living productive lives.

I Care is a non-profit organisation dedicated to finding meaningful and sustainable solutions to the challenge of street children in South Africa. The foundation is funded entirely by corporate and private donations.

If you really care about the plight of street children, your assistance would be gratefully received.

Make your donation to: Nedbank, account number 1648064566, KZN Business Branch, Code 164826.

Find out more about I Care on their website : www.icare.co.za

Police raped us - street kids
    Carvin Goldstone
    March 08 2008 at 10:22AM

Street children living near Albert Park allege that two of the girls who have been living on the perimeter of the park were raped by members of the Durban Metro Police - and one of them is now missing.

According to careworker Sipho Nyaka, whose NGO, World Back to God, helps look after street children, he has seen police officers arresting street children and found girls stripped naked and handcuffed on more than one occasion.

Nyaka said one of the girls who alleged she had been raped by a Metro policeman after being arrested was missing.

The other one who said she was also raped was still with the group of street children in the park on Friday.

However, a teenage boy who was arrested a few weeks ago has allegedly been missing since his arrest.

Nyaka said he has also seen police attack the children and has himself been assaulted.

But despite having witnesses’ statements and registration numbers of the Metro Police vehicles driven by the officers allegedly implicated, Nyaka has been unable to lay charges.

On Friday, The Independent on Saturday accompanied Nyaka to the Broad Street Police Station where he has tried on two occasions to open a case on behalf of the young girls.

Police again refused to open a case and told him that because he wanted to lay a charge against a police officer he would have go to Durban Central Police Station.

Nyaka says he has been to the Durban Central Police Station and was referred back to Broad Street Police Station because this was where the incident allegedly happened.

KwaZulu-Natal police Supt Vincent Mdunge said he was surprised that police had failed to assist someone with a complaint.

Jurisdiction

"When a complainant goes to open a case, even if the police station does not have jurisdiction they are bound by the call of duty to assist all people, even if it means they have to take the docket by police van or post the docket to Durban Central Police Station," he said.

He said Broad Street Police Station was a satellite station but there was no such ruling that a person could not open a case at a satellite police station just because the charge was against a policeman.

Nyaka said one of the young girls, who had been allegedly raped by a policeman, tried to open a case at Durban Central Police Station about two hours after the incident, but was told she did not have any evidence and had not seen a doctor.

Many of the children told The Independent on Saturday that they were often kicked and hit by police officers because they slept in the street.

Metro Police spokesperson Senior Superintendent Thozamile Tyala said the allegations had not officially been brought to the Metro Police’s attention.

He said in order to take action they needed to be informed and then had to check their records.

He said people who had complaints against the police must come forward and there were many avenues to follow. These included the Independent Complaints Directorate and SAPS and Municipal Ombudsmen.

According to the Independent Complaints Directorate’s 2006/2007 annual report, investigators finalised 7 374 cases of complaints against police officers across the country. These included backlogged and new cases.

          o This article was originally published on page 2 of The Independent on Saturday on March 08, 2008

Street kids call for protection against police

March 01, 2008, 16:00

Street kids in Durban have called on Government to protect them from alleged abuse by some members of the city’s metro police.

Last week the children, who live in Albert Park, threatened to take to the streets in protest against the alleged abuse. The kids claim officers often come while they are sleeping and demand sex. They say the latest incident happened last week when the kids claim they were stripped naked by policemen who were not wearing name tags.

Spokesperson for the KwaZulu-Natal Street Kids Association, Sipho Nyaka, says some metro police officials are abusing their authority.

Metro police spokesperson, Thomas Tyala, says people should report such incidents.

Durban policemen accused of abusing street kids

February 23, 2008, 10:00
A Durban organisation helping street children has called for harsh action against members of the Ethekwini Metro police who allegedly sexually assaulted children living in Albert Park.

This comes after claims that some of the children had been assaulted by undercover policemen. KwaZulu-Natal Street Kids Association spokesperson Sipho Nyaka has called for a suspension and dismissal of the officers involved in the abuse.

Metro police spokesperson Thomas Tyala has encouraged the public to report any police abuse incidents.

Day the Fremantle Dockers brought joy to South Africa town
Article from: Herald Sun
Damian Barrett

January 31, 2008 12:00am

THE street kids of the Thakeneng Project in South Africa have no idea who the big men in the purple shirts are, but they smile when they enter their world and keep smiling for the hour they spend with them.

Their lives, ever so slowly being repaired by some amazing carers, have been horrific.

A brochure outlining the project’s work explains that about 50 kids under its care have usually suffered the most despicable types of abuse.

For these kids on this day, though, there is only happiness. Big men in purple shirts have arrived to see them. Better still, there are footballs to kick and they get to keep the balls and a purple cap.

The project’s manager, Corrie Engelbrecht, is adamant this day will be recorded by the kids as a life highlight. Remembered as the day some adults spent some quality time with them and made them feel like the most special people on earth.

When it’s time for the Fremantle players to leave, the kids burst into beautiful song, the players mesmerised by the power of their noise and actions.

The kids finish that song and begin another. They know there is no way the big guys will leave if they keep singing.

But their music is stopped by a carer, and final goodbyes, hugs, handshakes, high-fives and down-lows are made.

The kids are disappointed, but have been told they will be driven by bus to watch the big guys play "foo-ty" against some other big guys in navy blue on Saturday, so there’s something else to look forward to.

"And that doesn’t happen a lot," Engelbrecht said. "All we want to do is make a difference to a child’s life, and when that happens, we are so grateful to see that joy and, as you can no doubt see yourself, there is joy here today."

The Dockers travelled from the street kids’ project to the Potchefstroom Prison. On the jail’s sports field, they kicked footies and exchanged stories with a dozen or so prisoners serving life sentences. They walked through the women’s ward, where some were heartbroken at the sight of inmates tending to babies.

They were shown the maximum security division, from which few prisoners leave.

Just as the innocent kids had done, the prisoners didn’t stop smiling — even those who looked about 16 and were doomed to a life in hell, sleeping in the same 5m x 5m space with 19 other lifers.

"I can’t believe how happy they look," Docker Byron Schammer observed.

If you ever stop to analyse the sights on offer in most parts of South Africa, it makes for dreadful, teary analysis.

But the people so often have a smile, or at least a buoyancy in their step.

There are the kids who are having the time of their lives rolling a tyre down a busy street and the old guys sitting outside their near-derelict cottages, without power or running water, but who have enough pride to manicure their small lawns.

Docker Des Headland, an indigenous Australian, says he can relate to indigenous South Africa.

"It is what they are brought up with and they accept things. They deal with what they’ve got and the life they have, yet they have a passion for that life," Headland said.

"Look at some of the kids we’ve seen today. You can’t believe what they’ve been through already in their lives and they’ve all got happy faces and are running around and smiling. And their smiles put smiles on our faces, too."

Headland’s Aboriginal teammate Jeff Farmer said it was always best to look at life positively.

"You try not to harp on that (the helplessness) too much; you try to bring a little bit of joy and a little bit of happiness for these kids," Farmer said.

"We are only here for 10 days, but you can already tell that that’s enough time to maybe make a difference, maybe change a kid’s life in terms of bringing a bit of joy."

After the prison visit, the players conduct a footy clinic in the Ikageng community on the fringes of Potchefstroom. There are more than 500 wide smiles when they arrive, but the happiest face belongs to Tebogo Raditsabena, a volunteer who helps coach locals in the art of Australian football.

Raditsabena has no legs. Puma shoes, worn backwards, protect the ends of what was left of his legs after he was severely burned as a child.

Some fear that now the big guys in purple have moved on, so many South African people uplifted by their visit will now revert to a life that seemingly has so little to look forward to.

Which is why Farmer’s words need to be absorbed.

"They’ll have the memories, mate, I know they will, and that will mean a lot to them," he said.

It‘s easier for street kids to beg than to go to school

Shaanaaz de Jager

SIXTEEN-YEAR-OLD Thembela always dreamt of one day being a policeman. But for many years, patchy education and an unstable home environment made that dream seem unlikely. Now a resident of the Siyakatala PE night shelter in Korsten, Thembela has returned to school thanks to the help and support of social workers – and his dream suddenly seems within reach once again.

He is one of hundreds of destitute street children in the city who have turned to shelters for help.

And social workers in turn are trying to ensure that these children get the education they so desperately need to become functioning members of society.

Maranatha homeless shelter director Trudi Basson finds that in most interviews with street children they will lie about their schooling.

“They will say they‘ve reached Grade 4, but after educational tests you‘ll find that the child only reached Grade 2 or has been out of school so long that those missed years are a big gap in their schooling.”

Basson said smaller children were often used by bigger ones to earn an income by begging on the streets. This was because the older ones usually could not earn an income themselves.

“They most probably can‘t find work because they are illiterate as well,” Basson said. “You‘ll find that sometimes the little ones are victimised and forced to stand on the street and beg. Some younger children are also on drugs.

“We test them and often find that what they tell you on the street isn‘t always the truth.

“Last year we enrolled children at school. Some stayed at school while others ran away.

“They don‘t see going to school as a solution. After all, why must they go to school if they can get money on the street right now? And, unfortunately, drugs are also available. Going to school is not an instant solution to their problem. It doesn‘t solve poverty at home.”

Basson said 16 children had been home-schooled at the Maranatha shelter before being enrolled at various schools. “People can help by donating children‘s school fees, buying a pair of shoes or paying taxi fares.

“You often find children who don‘t have school shoes do not want to go to school. They are too shy to go to school barefoot.” Instead, some of these children grow up illiterate and are forced to help support their families.

District Alliance for Street Children manager Mlindi Velapi said there was a “disaster” regarding the education of street children in the city. “There is a lack of resources and I feel the government must do more for the street children.”

Some children at shelters might have a better future, but volunteers can also help shape a brighter future.

Basson said educational programmes were offered at Siyakatala. “We try to teach these children basic computer skills with the help of volunteers.”

Some of the children at the shelter feel fortunate to get a meal, bath and have a safe place to sleep as well as learn to read and write again.

Thembela came to Siyakatala in 2006. Now in Grade 9, he has never lived on the streets, but left his dad‘s house in Missionvale for a better option.

“My friends brought me to the shelter,” he said. “My dad was never around and he didn‘t work. There was little food at home and he didn‘t care for me. He would go look for work every day but just didnot find any.”

Thembela was in Grade 8 when he arrived at the shelter, but stopped attending school because it was too far to travel.

Last year, Siyakatala staff members encouraged him to resume his schooling and registered him at David Livingstone High School, Schauderville. He passed Grade 8.

This year, Thembela starts Grade 9 at Livingstone High.

“I‘m happy at the shelter. My dad knows I‘m here,” Thembela said. He did not know who his mother was. His dad had only visited him at the shelter once, early last year. He had not seen him since.

Unlike Thembela, his friend Gabriel, 13, lived on the streets and begged for food and money. Gabriel, from Gelvandale, was 12 when he left his mother‘s home for the streets.

He left home because he believed his mother did not want to look after him. However, she had asked that he stay at the shelter and saw him regularly.

He also said he had been lured to the streets by friends.

Gabriel had only completed Grade 3. With the help of volunteers at the shelter he is taught to read, write and do maths. He likes the educational programmes at the shelter and dreams of “owning a big house and being married and having children”.

Gabriel has older siblings and sometimes visits them at home. “They‘re always happy to see me.”

He still stands a good chance of being accepted at school, unlike Denzil, 18, from Missionvale, who has only completed Grade 6.

The age gap for Denzil to get a primary school education was too big, Basson said. “Some schools don‘t accept people his age at school at that level.”

Denzil left school after his father died. His mother found it difficult to provide for her family. “I used to live on the streets for a few weeks on and off, then my mother would fetch me home. This went on for years.

“I heard from other children that living on the street one got money and food from other people,” Denzil said. Friends had brought him to the shelter last year.

“I would like to finish school and be a traffic officer some day,” Denzil said.

He said living on the streets was “sometimes okay, but then there were times when I was sad and lonely”.

Denzil, who can read and write English and Afrikaans, said while living at the centre he had learnt much more from the educational programmes.

“I‘ve learnt how to budget money as well. I dream of earning a good living and giving my mother a good life someday.”

Is your restaurant StreetSmart?

Wed, 19 Dec 2007

Cape Town’s leading restaurants have raised over R560 000 to support StreetSmart, a fundraising organisation dedicated to the social integration of the city’s street children which culminated in the charity’s patron, Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu presenting R300 000 to three charitable beneficiaries — Learn to Live, Ons Plek and The Homestead.

Currently 35 restaurants are embracing the organisation’s vision to make a real difference to street children’s lives. Funds are raised by adding a R5 donation to each table’s bill at the participating restaurants. This donation is voluntary and diners are able to contribute more if they wish to.

Overwhelming support

"The support from Cape Town’s member restaurants this year has been overwhelming and without their motivation for the project such initiatives we are embarking upon just simply would not happen," said Margi Biggs, chairperson of StreetSmart South Africa.

"Our goal is to grow member restaurants in the next year by encouraging many more of Cape Town’s fine eating establishments to become involved with the StreetSmart initiative to fund more much needed projects in the city and Western Cape in 2008," she added.

In total StreetSmart has donated a much needed R300 000 cash boost — twice as much as last year — to the organisation’s three beneficiary charities.

Learn to Live, which provides education for street children, will spend the money on an Outreach Worker programme. With its mission to help homeless boys reconstruct their shattered lives, The Homestead will invest in its family re-construction programmes whilst Ons Plek, the only shelter that takes in homeless girls, will use the money for its family reunification and skills development programmes. Ons Plek is a safe house for girls who do not only need food and shelter, but also a safe haven from violence that they may have endured.

First of its kind

StreetSmart, the country’s first and only fundraising initiative through leading restaurants, was launched in 2005 under the patronage of Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu.

Restaurants are recruited from in and around Cape Town to help raise funds in aid of the beneficiaries. The organisation received its first donation (R1855) in June 2005 from Harveys at the Mansions, the signature restaurant at Winchester Mansions. Now the restaurant donates on average R4529 per month.

For more information on how you can join or to make a donation, contact StreetSmart on +27 21 434 1144 or visit www.streetsmartsa.org.za.

South Africa: Ethekwini City Manager Extends Good Wishes
BuaNews (Tshwane)

13 December 2007
Posted to the web 13 December 2007

eThekwini

The festive season is a time for all to think about those less fortunate than themselves, says ethekwini City Manager Mike Sutcliffe.

"During this festive season, no matter what our religious background, we are usually told to focus our thoughts on those less fortunate than ourselves," Mr Sutcliffe said in his regular newsletter.

"Those who are poor, hungry, without shelter are usually the first that we think about and pray for. But those who are discriminated against and abused, particularly women and children, also feature highly in our thoughts."

Mr Sutcliffe spoke of the ills of racism, sexism and xenophobia which still permeate our society and urged citizens to continually focus on ridding society of these problems, in order to build a truly free country.

"In my case, as City Manager of a city the size of eThekwini, every day I am reminded of the fact that the majority of our people are, in different ways, still disadvantaged, discriminated against and hurting from hunger, poverty and disease," he said.

"I find myself needing to care, but also have to deal with the concerns of those who prefer not to see the squalor, poverty and hurting or who have businesses that are negatively affected by vagrants living on the street."

Recent incidents, explained the city manager, highlight these contradictions.

"Our incredibly successful hosting of the 2010 FIFA Preliminary Draw also had the usual comments that we had cleared the streets of all street children.

"Certainly I checked with Metro Police who have been instructed by me that they cannot arrest and detain children and we did no such thing. In my neighbourhood, throughout the Draw, the same groups of some 20-30 street children continued to live on the street."

The city manager said these children continue to resist all attempts to provide them with support, despite the city’s best efforts.

"Businesses and many residents continue to ask me to clear them away and whilst we do provide as much social welfare support we can, they keep coming back."

Around the same time a group of residents had been evicted onto the street.

"It was late in the day and one of the terrible storms was pelting down on us. One person died and we were approached to provide tents to shelter these truly poor people.

"We did so, even though as a very short term measure but the surrounding residents did not see it that way and criticised us."

On Wednesday night, said Mr Sutcliffe, one of the city’s stormwater drains burst and over 50 shacks were washed away.

"We urgently put up a tent in a park and will provide sanitation on a temporary basis.

"We will, through our housing and other programmes, eventually ensure everyone has access to sanitation and shelter, but we cannot do that overnight. We are trying to be a caring city, but also recognise that has unintended consequences."

Mr Sutcliffe assured the eThekwini would continue to try its best to manage these contradictions, but further called on all who are advantaged to help the city’s management to find solutions.

"During this festive season let us all get recharged so that collectively we can work towards getting rid of the pain, hurt, humiliation, discrimination and abuse we have in our city.

"Let’s dedicate ourselves to loving our neighbours as we would have them love us. Let’s welcome in 2008 with open arms and do everything we can to bring peace, prosperity and love to all in our city, country and continent. All the best for 2008!"

Granny forgives petrol killer
Tania Broughton
December 12 2007 at 08:59AM

In an apparent gesture of forgiveness, the grandmother of a 13-year-old boy who was burnt alive a week ago called out "go well" to the man who confessed to the killing as he left the Durban high court to begin serving his 20-year prison sentence.

Francine Hadebe, grandmother of Philani Hadebe, wept throughout the hearing before Judge President Vuka Tshabalala, her cries echoing out as the gruesome details of the crime were read out.

The man in the dock, Sibongiseni Khwela, 29, was also crying and at one stage had to be handed tissues.

In his guilty plea before the court, Khwela said he had gone to the Montford shopping centre in Chatsworth to buy lunch. When he came out of the shop, his bicycle was gone.

‘I woke them up and said: ‘Do you know what you did to me yesterday?’
He was told by others in the area that it had been taken by Philani.

"They described him to me, and it came to my mind that I knew that person as I had seen him at the shopping centre before," he said.

Eventually he found Philani, who said he would show him where he had hidden the bike. But before they got there, he was set on by a group of Philani’s street children friends, who threw stones at him, injuring his ribs and hands and bruising his eye.

Khwela said he became very angry. The next day he woke early and took a two-litre container to the nearest garage and filled it with petrol.

He then went to the supermarket and found Philani and Sipho Shezi, 18, sleeping in the passageway.

‘The whole family is shocked, angry and overcome with grief at the way he died…’
"I woke them up and said: ‘Do you know what you did to me yesterday?’ They suddenly woke up and I poured petrol over their bodies. I used matches and put their bodies on fire."

Shezi died that day. Philani died in hospital two days later.

Passing sentence, the judge said Khwela had shown a "clear streak of cruelty".

On the other hand, he said, while Khwela had overreacted to the theft of his bicycle, if that had not happened, he would never have done this. As a gardener and odd-job man, the judge said, his bicycle was a means of transport to get jobs.

"I can also take judicial notice of the fact that the deceased were street children.

"I have personally dealt with cases in this court where street children have committed crimes such as robbery and murder," he said, referring to a specific case in which a family living in their car on the beachfront were attacked by street children and the father was shot and killed.

While that crime had been far more serious than the theft of a bicycle, "it is an indication of what street children can do", the judge said.

In the circumstances - and because Khwela was a first offender and obviously remorseful - it would be unjust to sentence him to the legislated minimum sentence of life imprisonment.

Instead, he sentenced him to 20 years on both counts of murder, ordering that they run concurrently and that Khwela not be considered for parole until he had served two thirds of the sentence.

Philani’s aunt, Jabu Zaca, said the young boy had lived with his granny at first, but had been "rebellious" and had been living on the streets.

"The whole family is shocked, angry and overcome with grief at the way he died, but we are also angry at ourselves," she said.