Siphokazi Nini was just 7 years old. Last Sunday, she was abducted from the garden of her guardian in Kwanokuthula by her step-father. She was raped and brutally murdered then dumped in a stream behind St. Monica's Anglican church where a service was in progress, a church where we have attended services often over the last few years. The man was hunted down by members of the community and was himself brutally murdered with knives and clubs. We had just left when this news was phoned through to us.
Tomorrow, all the schoolchildren of Kwanokuthula and the greater Plettenberg Bay area will join a march through the streets to honour Siphokazi and to cry out with their young voices for change. The people of the Masizame Project which was caring for this child are in deep shock. We also are in shock.
Early this morning as I sat with the silence and the lightest of rain, and my eyes looked out to the sea, the peace of the day and the violence of Siphokazi's death numbed my spirit. For a time I felt suspended between impossible emotions. I could do no other than be a witness to this terrifying picture of life's extremes. If I could have spoken, the words would have meant nothing, explained nothing, and achieved nothing. They would have seemed like vapour.
Tonight we will eat in a favourite restaurant in Paternoster. In the morning, we will walk on the empty beach. We will have lunch somewhere. Masizame will pick up the shattered pieces. It will open its doors each and every day. It will do the best it can. And so this life goes on.
Wednesday 30 November 2011
Friday 18 November 2011
a year on
It is just under a year since we were last here in Cape Town. Some things have changed. A vast flock of pelicans, who were to be found on the water adjacent to the 310 to Stellenbosch, are no longer to be seen there. From the air, these majestic flying machines, can see for miles. They probably spotted somewhere different, somewhere better.
In the city, there are fewer vulnerable and homeless kids on the streets. In the year of the World Cup, the authorities cleared them out. Like the pelicans we have no idea where they have gone. The police are more visible. Great, no doubt, for tourists and business visitors. But, wait. Jim and Sue Brosnan, who arrived here today commented on how empty the streets were and how little tourist footfall was evident on Long Street and Greenmarket Square.
Out in Dunoon not much has changed. Some of the blue, plastic toilet cubicles have been replaced by gleaming, silver, metal ones instead. But it is still a grim place. Mary Dell, who visited with us in the Dales a few weeks ago, still plods on against impossible odds. Two days ago, their office was burgled. They took computers, a copier, back-up hard drive, router and stationary.
They also took their entire store of school uniforms.
Meanwhile, the St. Kizito office in Gugulethu was burgled and ransacked two weeks ago. The thieves also took all their school uniforms. Marian, who spent 6 weeks with us earlier in the year, said she cried at work for the very first time.
The men's groups in the Cape Flat's communities are thriving. That little butterfly certainly had mighty wings and there is great optimism for the future. This also represents a very significant change. So often in the past, such hopeful movements have foundered after only a short while. The handful who launched the first group in Lansdown have grown in stature and strength. And they have shown real leadership.
The poor and the dispossessed, like the pelicans on the 310, also want somewhere different, somewhere better. Unlike the pelicans, they cannot fly high enough to see where the better places are and how they might get there. It is an altogether slower and more difficult journey for them. But as we have often said in this blog, nothing is impossible. Mary amd Marian and the men of Landsdown will keep going.
In the city, there are fewer vulnerable and homeless kids on the streets. In the year of the World Cup, the authorities cleared them out. Like the pelicans we have no idea where they have gone. The police are more visible. Great, no doubt, for tourists and business visitors. But, wait. Jim and Sue Brosnan, who arrived here today commented on how empty the streets were and how little tourist footfall was evident on Long Street and Greenmarket Square.
Out in Dunoon not much has changed. Some of the blue, plastic toilet cubicles have been replaced by gleaming, silver, metal ones instead. But it is still a grim place. Mary Dell, who visited with us in the Dales a few weeks ago, still plods on against impossible odds. Two days ago, their office was burgled. They took computers, a copier, back-up hard drive, router and stationary.
They also took their entire store of school uniforms.
Meanwhile, the St. Kizito office in Gugulethu was burgled and ransacked two weeks ago. The thieves also took all their school uniforms. Marian, who spent 6 weeks with us earlier in the year, said she cried at work for the very first time.
The men's groups in the Cape Flat's communities are thriving. That little butterfly certainly had mighty wings and there is great optimism for the future. This also represents a very significant change. So often in the past, such hopeful movements have foundered after only a short while. The handful who launched the first group in Lansdown have grown in stature and strength. And they have shown real leadership.
The poor and the dispossessed, like the pelicans on the 310, also want somewhere different, somewhere better. Unlike the pelicans, they cannot fly high enough to see where the better places are and how they might get there. It is an altogether slower and more difficult journey for them. But as we have often said in this blog, nothing is impossible. Mary amd Marian and the men of Landsdown will keep going.
Tuesday 1 March 2011
filling the basket for the children
Cape Kids
The Cape Kids community account was set up to raise funds for children’s projects based in Cape Town. Michael and Karen Stewart began work there in 2008 concentrating on the poorer projects in the poorer neighbourhoods, working with abandoned and orphaned children. One of the projects, St.Kizito, has a presence in many of the townships, while two of them serve the township of Dunoon, a desperately poor, violent and dangerous district on the west coast just to the north of the City. Dunoon has a high murder rate and the physical and sexual abuse of women and children is rife.
Michael and Karen have spent over two years working with the projects, getting to know how they function, coming to understand their goals, as well as providing help from their own professional backgrounds in nursing, psychology, social work and management. During the six months of each year they spend there they have also come to understand the financial needs of the projects. At the beginning of April this year, they will be hosting Marian Hendricks from St.Kizito who will be here to help with fund-raising.
At the “after-school” project in Dunoon, children from the age of 4 or five up to the age of 18 are afforded protection from abuse by the men-folk in their family and community at a time when their mothers are out at work. This is a time when they are most at risk. To feed them all – around 200 of them - with a sandwich and a drink, food bought cheaply from the local supermarket, costs around £20. It was inspired by Mary Dell, a Canadian from Vancouver, who gave up a wealthy life style to encourage the poor to go to school. www.boostafrica.com
The nearby Zusakhe project, founded by a Xhosa woman, Patricia Fekema on a plot of waste ground previously used by local men for taking drugs and abusing young girls, provides schooling and food for aids orphans as well as hand-made uniforms for boys and girls attending local schools. Starting with one empty container, she has established a community centre, a quadrangle bordered by six more containers and a prefabricated classroom.
A distinguishing feature of the projects is that local people play a key role in their management and development. In the case of St.Kizito, it is the poor helping the poor. It is not uncommon for a desperately poor family to take in an orphaned child. Usually this means adding another mouth to feed to an already over-stretched family living in an over-crowded shack.
A typical shack has no running water and no toilet with a carpet or linoleum laid over rough ground. They leak when it rains and they run the risk of burning down because cooking is done in such a cramped environment; often a single fire in a shack will destroy many of the others. On the morning that Michael and Karen left, a dozen of these fragile dwellings were destroyed.
Despite these challenges, families live out their lives with hope and optimism. But like the poor everywhere they survive from day to day. The funds we raise will go to where they are needed – to protect, feed and clothe the children, to projects that are making a difference.
To make a donation please contact us on: stewart.m.f@gmail.com or karenexley40@aol.com
Friday 7 January 2011
putting people together
Appletreewick village hall is a long way from the township of Dunoon. Nestling under Simon's Seat in beautiful Wharfedale it is about as northern european as can be. On Wednesday January 5th, the community of Skyreholme, Appletreewick, Burnsall and Hartlington gathered to raise funds for Cape Kids, a charity that supports kids projects in the sprawling cape flats below the iconic Table Mountain. Fittingly, the smiling children of Dunoon and Gugulethu gazed down on the gathering from their projected images on the wall above. They will have liked what they saw.
They are worlds apart, but on Wednesday they were, in a special way, brought together.
Twelve people put their heart and soul and their cooking skills into making the evening such a wonderful success: John and Pamela, Judy and Alastair, Robert and Sally, Lynne and Jim, John and Angela, Karen. They raised £2,400 pounds in all, every penny of which will go to the children. Thanks too to everyone who turned up and made the evening such a lot of fun. There was some food left over at the end, so on Thursday night it went to homeless people in Leeds. Well done to Katie!
This is the beginning of a year devoted to gathering resources for Cape Kids. In April, we host Marian Hendricks from the St.Kizito Movement at Banquet House as we share with more people the work and the challenges in the poorer communities of the Cape.
They are worlds apart, but on Wednesday they were, in a special way, brought together.
Twelve people put their heart and soul and their cooking skills into making the evening such a wonderful success: John and Pamela, Judy and Alastair, Robert and Sally, Lynne and Jim, John and Angela, Karen. They raised £2,400 pounds in all, every penny of which will go to the children. Thanks too to everyone who turned up and made the evening such a lot of fun. There was some food left over at the end, so on Thursday night it went to homeless people in Leeds. Well done to Katie!
This is the beginning of a year devoted to gathering resources for Cape Kids. In April, we host Marian Hendricks from the St.Kizito Movement at Banquet House as we share with more people the work and the challenges in the poorer communities of the Cape.
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