The community of Mluti - 24 February

The team went today to community of Mluti, which is part-way between the town of White River and the City of Mbombela .  Mluti is an urban area with a lot of social problems and Hands at Work in Africa have been working to support the Care Point at Mluti for several years.  There are a committed team of volunteer Care Workers who look after, feed and visit most vulnerable children in their community of Mluti.

After the customary greetings from the Care Workers we were invited to help prepare some of the food which everyone would eat later in the day.  Several members of our team helped with this , but Stella and Molly got the messiest of jobs... grating two large bags of beetroot!  Happily all the red stains have now come out!

After food preparation some of the team were able to join some of the Care Workers on their Holy Home Visits.   Isabelle and Eleanor pick up their part of the story from here...

Today we did a home visit at Mluti. This involved a walk down into the valley in which Mluti is situated and crossing the stream at the bottom...

The family we visited consisted of a single father, two children and a Gogo. When we first arrived there appeared to be nobody home, however after some phone calls we where informed the father would soon be returning after doing some piecework*. (*Piece work is the term used for casual labour)  Eunice explained that both the father and younger son where sick and currently had to go to clinics to receive medication, alongside the father’s other health problems he struggled in trying to convince his son to keep taking his medication. The Gogo (grandmother figure) had received money in order to buy food and essentials for the family, however, she spent had it on drugs. This conveyed the difficulty of the situation the family are in and possibly the impact on the children, for example the youngest son was skipping school often and the father wasn’t sure why. The care-point in Mluti are helping out the family by donating any leftovers from the daily meal that is cooked there to the family so they have some source of food for the day.
-Eleanor Cowing and Isabelle Munnelly

After returning to the Care Point we were able to play with the children, help to serve the food and enjoy eating it with them. 

 Despite the fun and laughter at the Care Point the team were aware of the huge challenges which the children face on a daily basis.  Many of them are children of parents who are originally from Mozambique, and even though the children were born in South Africa who do not have birth documents- and so cannot have the rights of citizenship (including child benefit payments, and the right to take their end of school exams).  Many of the children may grow up to be 'non-citizens' without documentation and any qualifications.   Hands at Work operates in communities like Mluti amongst the poorest of the poor, who may not have hope.  A key part of Hands at Work operation is to try to speak up for the needs of these children and help them to acquire citizenship rights if they are able to. 

On behalf of the team... Richard Westwood