Lone teen cares for seven kids
Grants dried up after mom died
ATEEN who dreamt of being a nurse has instead had to raise five siblings, a cousin and a son.
Living in a dilapidated house in Ngqamakwe village near Butterworth, she yesterday told the Daily Dispatch how she had mothered the seven children after first her grandmother died last April and then her mother in December.
The mother of the eight-year-old cousin – the teen’s aunt – died in 2007. The devastated young girl, 16, who cannot be named as she is a minor, said she did not know where her father was and last recalled seeing him many years ago.
None of the children receive social grants and her mother’s grant dried up after her death.
They now survive on the charity of neighbours and on money from an uncle in Johannesburg.
“As far as we know we are orphans. My mother came back from Cape Town after our grandmother died in April. She was sick and we had to take care of her,” she said.
The 16-year-old girl said she stopped going to school in 2013 after falling pregnant. She had been in Grade 6 at the time and since the death of her grandmother and mother has not returned to school.
Instead she now makes sure her siblings go to school each day despite the many challenges the young family faces.
“Every day I have to wake up at 5am and prepare them for school. My 14-year-old sister helps me,” she said. “We wash the young ones while the older ones wash themselves. I prepare food from the previous night for them to eat.”
A donation of school uniforms from a local church ensures they are at least properly clothed.
While her siblings are at school, the teen remains home caring for her baby son and toddler sister.
“We do have an uncle who sends us money because we don’t have social grants. My mother used to collect the [grants] for us but after she died the grants collapsed.
“My uncle is in Johannesburg though, and we last saw him in December. We don’t even know when he will come back,” the girl said.
Besides dreaming of one day returning to school and becoming a nurse, the young girl said she dreamt of a “proper” house for herself and her siblings.
Government officials from Amathole district municipality, Mnquma local municipality and members of the Moral Regeneration Movement visited the family yesterday to assess their situation.
Addressing the children and residents from the village yesterday, ADM speaker Samkelo Janda said child-headed households were once unheard of in African culture.
“There is no one who is born alone in our culture.
“But now we have seen a number of these cases where we are asked to intervene.
“Previously we were trying to assist elderly people.
“As a people we need to go back to our ways and practise ubuntu. We need the department of health to strongly intervene in this home together with social development so we can help these children live a healthy and long life.”
Gifts handed over to the young family included blankets for each child, food parcels and money to buy electricity.
Officials promised to return with further help.