The ABH celebrates 100 years of social care
BEYOND life on the sugar cane plantations, people of indentured ancestry living in South Africa were focused on survival in their African homes.
Basic care for our society’s most vulnerable, from the young to the aged, was largely dependent on the goodwill of religious missions, community solidarity and benevolent individuals. By 1883, two decades after the first indentured Indians landed in South Africa, the living conditions of the indentured labouring classes was enveloped in poverty, illiteracy, a lack of medical facilities and the urgent need for social care.
By the start of the 20th century, high numbers of child labourers and vagrant children roaming the streets of Durban led to white philanthropists forming the Durban Child Welfare Society. Sadly, children of colour were denied access to this welfare society.
The Great Depression of the 1930s saw an increase in the number of street children left without care. Dr Kesaveloo Goonam, South Africa’s first female doctor of colour, noted the following about Indian life in Durban in the 1930s: “During my home visits, I discovered the depth of Indian poverty. The staple diet was mealie rice, dhal (beans), herbs, potatoes and pickles. Protein was sadly lacking, meat, fish and chicken beyond their reach.”
At the height of the Depression years, municipal authorities were reluctant to confront the rising tide of indigent black children. After negative press coverage, the municipality established the Bantu Child Welfare Society in 1936. This was inadequate to cater for the burgeoning numbers. Social activists later developed places of safety such as the Brandon Bantu Home and the Motala Lads’ Hostel to assist indigent African and Indian children.
In 1927, two institutions were established to cater for indigent Indian children, the Aryan Benevolent Children’s Home and Durban Indian Child Welfare. Oppressive conditions post-Indian indenture in and around the city of Durban resulted in overcrowded living conditions, mass poverty, high child and maternal mortality, high incidences of disease and widespread illiteracy.
On May 1,1921, Bhawani Sannyasi officially opened the Aryan Benevolent Home (ABH) in Bellair, Durban. A religious body known as the Arya Yuvuk Sabha established the home under its founder, DG Satyadeva. The home was to provide shelter and care for the homeless and destitute. The original name of the home was Ananth Ashram. The wood-and-iron buildings served as living quarters for administration workers, the caretaker and as a home for the destitute.
The home was run on donations from Indian businesses. Stallholders in the Durban Indian Market also donated unsold perishables such as fruit and vegetables to the home. After much lobbying by the home’s board members, the colonial provincial government made its first financial contribution of £50 in 1923. By 1925, the grant doubled. This was largely due to the number of destitute people living at the home.
In the same year, the home assumed responsibility for admitting people who were sent directly from the Indian Protector’s Office. The home, far from being a private institution, was then accepting people from the police service, hospitals, the aged, feeble and weak and those who required special care and attention.
Today, this very home accepts and cares for people of all races and is seen as a beacon of hope for societies most vulnerable.
On October 7, 1926, the management committee accepted its first group of orphans, after receiving numerous requests from destitute families to accommodate orphans who were in need of care and protection. In this group was a future president of the ABH, Shishupal Rambharos.
Professor Fatima Meer penned a glowing tribute to Rambharos in which she noted: “There is the heart-rending image of the 6-year-old Shishupal struggling
to transport his mortally-ill father in a wheelbarrow for medical attention; there is the grace of the tender-hearted boy whose sweet nature blocked out the pain and hunger and responded to the kindness of his benefactors. Far from harbouring resentment, he converted the tedious demands of his elderly companions into service as prescribed by the Vedas (holy book) and conquered his deprivations by converting them into fulfilment.”
Rambharos’s dedication toward the welfare of the most vulnerable is a noble legacy that continues today. In a week that commemorates the birth of our nation, Rambharos’s efforts in providing hope for all South Africans must be constantly applauded and acknowledged.
In 1973, to coincide with the Golden Jubilee celebrations of the founding of its home for children in need of care and the aged, the ABH launched a fund-raising campaign for its new homes to be built on a site in Chatsworth. In 1964, the aged were moved to the premises previously occupied by the Salvation Army in Cato Manor. They were subsequently moved to the cottages known as Clayton Gardens, in the Sydenham area, which were leased from the Durban City Council.
In 1973, the home provided accommodation for 87 children and 120 aged persons. The ABH proposed to build a large complex of buildings on the 4.05-hectare site in Chatsworth. The total cost of this complex was estimated to be in the region of R1 million. The complex consisted of an administration block, cottages in which children would be housed in keeping with modern trends in institutional care, and a new home for the aged. It comprised single and double rooms and wards to cater for the frail who needed extra nursing care.
Today, the ABH provides care 24 hours a day to the aged, frail, physically and mentally challenged and abused women and orphans, spreading their activities over five facilities in the greater Durban area. They also provide for an aged-care facility in Glencoe and two children’s homes in Lenasia, Gauteng. The home provides 750 000 meals per year to the aged, frail, orphaned and abused.
In a Covid-19 ravaged world, not economically dissimilar to when the homes were originally founded, let us continue to build on a wonderful legacy to serve those most vulnerable. We must constantly remind ourselves of the onerous responsibility that falls to us to constantly support the ABH in all its efforts to take care of societies most vulnerable.
Thank you to the past and present board members, management, staff and hordes of caregivers for your sterling efforts in providing love and hope to all those in your care. Congratulations to the ABH on your centenary on May 1. May you grow in strength in serving others.