seems like we don't even care.

yesterday i attended a meeting, the content of which was both inspiring and devastating. organized by living hope's social worker, the meeting was an attempt to bring together all the organizations working in the area so that networking can begin amongst us all.
it was interesting. i'm not sure how you measure success after a meeting like that. but it was very informative.

some of the things i learned devastated me. i'm just going to list them for you:
--in masiphumelele, a black township near to living hope's hopsice center, there is a group of 11-12 year old girls having sex with a group of 5-6 year old boys. from what i could gather, it was voluntarily happening on both sides. most of them have HIV.
--the department of social services which serves an area as big as brentwood, cool springs, and franklin combined doesn't even have an office in the area. the closest branch is some 20 miles away. include areas like capricorn, ocean view, masi, and red hill---four settlements in dire need of their own social services offices--and these people still would have to travel to file a basic claim or report for their safety.
--the representative from this deparment said that an emergency is defined as "a child's life being threatened or at risk". i laughed. first of all, how can you draw a line like this when you walk into a devastated community like capricorn, a place where every child is underclothed, undernourished, underloved, and likely the product of 2 drug-addicted or alcoholic parents, born to them under the age of 20? a place where kids get hit with candlesticks by their mom's, then sent out late at night to commit crimes which will bring in money for sugar and crystal meth--two necessities in capricorn homes. where mom's are too drunk most of the time to even notice that their 9 year old child hasn't come home in 6 months. a place where stepdads chase their stepchildren away in a drunken stupor, then try to have sex with those same kids if they come home and he's in a good mood.
how do you draw a line between "emergency" and "nonemergency" in a place such as this?
--the department of child welfare for these communities, known as CAFDA, is withdrawing (aka: shutting down) because they have had to compete for funds with the department of social services for so long that neither department can do anything effectively. that means that every family i know in capricorn with a social worker (all of whom are from CAFDA, assigned to the community members) gets lost in the battle for money. and this is supposed to help save kids lives?
--in the southern peninsula area (the area south of cape town, across to the 1 million member township of khayelitsha over to the large colored area of mitchell's plain, down through to muizenberg/capricorn, over the mountain to fish hoek, ocean view, and to the tip of south africa, there is (((((HEAR THIS))))) ONE social worker for every 13,000 cases.
--when asked if there is a way to speed up the process of referring an "emergency" to the department of social services, then actually seeing something, ANYTHING, happen (such as a home visit, phone call, police intervention, etc), the representative said, in essence, "nope".
"can we provide a social worker to do the home visit and then give you the report, perhaps speeding up the process?" (no.)


meanwhile, back in capricorn, rugshana, the mother of some kids i work with in muizenberg (3 of whom would rather live on the street or in prison that with their mother) is pregnant AGAIN by a man she hardly knows. after trying to get an abortion and finding out it's too late, she promises that she's going to give the kid up for adoption and that a family has already been lined up (this is a lie). when she told her her first son about the new baby, he said, (((((HEAR THIS)))))
"i will not even look at that baby. our family has 34 kids, not 35."

yes, that's right. there are 34 children in this family, all from different women. that's 34, soon to be 35, kids who don't have a mom and dad (mom's on tik, dad died 5 years ago), don't have a promise of family, don't have a future promised for them, don't even have a home (as in four walls and a roof) to begin life in.

and that's 35 extra "emergencies" for the department of social services to do nothing with. which led a man in the meeting to ask yesterday "where is the hope in that?"


i am listening to this jay-z song on repeat from his latest album, kingdom come. this song is one he wrote about hurricane katrina. this one part is running through my mind after that meeting and after the year and a half of live i've lived in south africa...
So many times I'm, covering my eyes
Peeking through my fingers
Tryin' to hide my, frustration at the way that we treat
Turn on the TV, seein' the pain
Sayin' such a shame
Then tryin' to go on with my life
Of that, I too, am guilty
So we send a lil' money, tell 'em it's alright
To be able to sleep at night
You will pay that price
While some of these folks' lost their whole life
Now it wasn't on the nightly news no more
Suddenly it didn't matter to you no more
In the end almost nothing changed
What the hell, what was that for?