Feeding scheme and Aids advice centre live on in memory of Gugu
DELEGATES attending the 21st International Aids conference in Durban next month will visit the Gugu Dlamini Foundation centre in Ntuzuma township, north of Durban.
Gugu was an HIV/Aids activist who was stoned to death by a mob after disclosing her status in 1998.
Her 31-year-old daughter, Mandisa Dlamini, founded the centre with help from her adopted parent in Pretoria. She told the Sunday Tribune that 40 delegates were expected to visit from July 18 to 22. The first stop will be at a landmark on the road where Dlamini was assaulted before she died in her house, a few metres away.
She said the visit would end at her mother’s house, which has been converted into a mini-memorial museum. She said eThekwini Parks Department had been instrumental in developing a memorial by planting trees and naming a park in the CBD after her mother.
“We will have Gugu’s life shared with the delegates. Her life will be told in the simplest form, through pictures.
“A wall of fame has been installed, it is pasted with press cuttings showing stories of victims.
“This is about young people taking ownership of their lives,” Mandisa said.
“The site visit is important as it honours the death of my mother, an activist that many people have forgotten about.
“Through this visit the world will understand about children’s plight in the townships,” she said.
Mandisa, who has become a beacon of hope to orphans, wants to raise more funds to expand the centre.
She also wants to install a laundry so children’s school uniforms can be washed and ironed to lessen the burden on working parents exhausted after a long day.
“The centre has been used as a day care facility which helps to protect girls from abuse, after rumours of a serial rapist circulated,” Mandisa said.
Although she is still hurting because she cannot find closure on her mother’s death, Mandisa holds no grudges against her mother’s killers who were never punished. She said a witness who was to have testified had been threatened by the suspects.
“I have forgiven them because it is about the healing process. I run this project to help stop the stigma against people taking antiretrovirals,” Mandisa said.
About the conference, she believed there should be less talk and more action. She advocated that the youth be heard because they were the future.
“We have been doing a lot of talking in the past, now is the time for action.
“Teenagers are not benefiting from such events. They need to be at the forefront. We have children born with the virus – which leads to multiple infections.
“Ignorance and fear, play a huge part. Girls do not expect to be infected by their first partners, they often think it is only the older men (sugar daddies) capable of infecting them.”
She said during her dialogue with teenagers, she had picked up a lot of anger from those infected.
“It comes as a shock when reality hits that she is infected after a nurse discloses her status,” Mandisa said.
When the Sunday Tribune visited the foundation on Tuesday afternoon, scores of hungry children from different schools in the area arrived for their meals. She has enlisted the help of three volunteers, among them a cook, and a teacher who helps the pupils with homework.
The children were eating rice and butternut stew prepared by the team.
Foundation administrator Nomthandazo Zungu, who volunteers her services, said they prepared different menus including spinach, potatoes, cabbages, carrots, beans, fish, phuthu and samp which were sponsored by a food bank.
“When they arrive here, they are extremely hungry and with pale, sad faces. But when they leave, all that changes.
“We are happy to add that spark of happiness in their lives given what they are going through.
“We feed them a balanced diet to keep them healthy.
“We see new faces daily. This has become very popular, it is their ‘pit stop’ for a staple diet,” she said.
Zungu said the soup kitchen, which runs from Monday to Friday, helped because children depended on it.
She said sometimes children shared sad and horrific stories about their home lives. She pointed to a 7-year-old girl whose mother was a cancer patient but also a whoonga addict.
“Her father died many years ago, she has no support except from her ailing grandmother. We cry listening to such painful stories.
“We share our love with them to give hope and inspiration. It is tough being a township kid born into poverty,” Zungu said.
However, a few criminal elements do not appreciate what the foundation does for the community. They have stripped the building of doors and toilets to rebuild their own shacks.
The foundation also donates clothes to the destitute children.