Grandmother (Ms) Ndlovu*, is a 74 year old woman who was never married. She had three children, two daughters and a son. One of the daughters passed away in 2001, three months after giving birth to Siyabonga*. The grandmother therefore took care of Siyabonga* since the father (who is believed to have died in 2006) never participated in his life.

Siyabonga is an eight-year-old boy, and like any other eight year olds, he likes school, playing soccer and hanging around with his friends. He is doing well in school. He is always on time, participates well in class and doesn’t miss school.

Siyabonga* and his grandmother stay in a single 4x3 metre mud blocks house. The house is literally falling apart.  It has neither windows nor  a  locking door and has  an  uneven floor, which holds water when it rains. They share a bed and there is barely any space to move around in the house. They cook using  a  paraffin fuelled stove.  Gogo Ndlovu  receives an old age pension, which she has to stretch for the whole month. She never has enough to last to the next pension collection date and therefore she is always in debt  to the local businesses. At one point she had a debt of over R400 for groceries, which she had to pay from her R900 old age pension. She also has a history of alcohol abuse and no one has ever tried to help her.

With all the challenges she is facing in life. She has been a very responsible caregiver to Siyabonga*. She is very protective of him. She does not leave in the morning before Siyabonga* goes to school and she makes sure he is neat and has breakfast. She returns from wherever she had been during the day at least an hour before Siyabonga* returns from school to make food for him and washes his clothes each day.  When Thandanani first came into contact with this household Gogo Ndlovu's pride meant that she insisted on buying a new school uniform for  Siyabonga even though Thandanani was  willing to  provide him with a new uniform. The overall assessment  of  the area development facilitator  is that Gogo Ndlovu's  is a responsible and caring caregiver who is providing the best care she can given her difficult circumstances. 

Having assessed the needs of the family, Thandanani has now included the Ndlovu household on its database. The  first priority was to assist in addressing some of the basic material needs of the household.  Currently Thandanani ,  together with Ms Ndlovu’s* daughter and a local builder,  are building a  basic two roomed house in order to move the family out of their current hut.  Thandanani has  also assisted Gogo Ndlovu to secure Siyabonga’s* birth certificate, the mother’s death certificate and  all the other documents necessary to apply for a foster care grant. They are currently waiting for the  Department of Social Development to conduct a household visit and lodge the report with the Commissioner of Child Welfare.

In the meantime the first phase of building has started and the excitement is written all over the grandmother’s face. She spends most of her time at home, sober and helping with the build. She can now interact with her daughter on a mother/daughter level where before all they did was fight with each other as she thought any help she tried to bring to them was meant to take Siyabonga away from her.  

The grandmother and her daughter (Siyabonga’s aunt) had not being seeing things eye to eye when it came to the raising and caring of Siyabonga. The aunt has been concerned  about the grandmother’s parenting skills since they never had a good relationship growing up. Also she has been concerned  about the negligence that happens when the grandmother has consumed alcohol. However Thandanani staff has had a different story from the neighbours and teachers at school. In the  next few weeks we will see the family celebrating their new house with concrete floors, locking doors and windows that they can call home.  

Thandanani has secured a bed for Siyabonga and is currently looking at securing another bed for the grandmother and hopeful to have it by the time the house is finished. Bedding (blankets) will also be provided for both the grandmother and Siyabonga, also an assessment of any other urgent needs will be conducted. Before the family can move into their new house, Thandanani will provide support and training on caring for their house and address the general hygienic issues. There will be a family conference that will be conducted by the development facilitator and an assigned volunteer in order to identify other support systems that the family might need. Over and above that, when Siyabonga’s foster care grant comes through, the development facilitator will assist the grandmother in opening an account for Siyabonga in order to save a portion of money for him, should something happen to the grandmother or Siyabonga moves to stay with someone else or when he turns eighteen, he will have money in his name to be able to take care of himself.

Note:   * Not their real names