Development Talk

Check out this interesting article from The Times following a report made by the UN and the SA Human Rights Commission. The article discusses South Africa continues to neglect its most vulnerable, in particular, children, as they are negatively impacted by a lack of a proper home, health care and schooling.

Some of the report’s troubling findings include:

• 64%, or 11.9million, of the country’s 18.6million children live in poverty. Many of them are Aids orphans – about 5.5million people have HIV/Aids in South Africa, more than in any other country

• Only 54% of the HIV-positive children who should be on antiretroviral treatment are receiving it;

• More than 270 babies and their mothers die after birth on average a day, mainly due to HIV/Aids, and the maternal mortality rate has increased by 80% since 1990;

• 582000 children who should be attending high school are not – 28% don’t have the money for fees and 15% because “education is useless”;

• Of 56500 children who were victims of violent crime in 2009-2010, 27417 were raped or molested. Of those, 29% were aged between 0 and 10.

Read the full article below:

***
The Times: Young,hungry,helpless

http://www.timeslive.co.za/local/article986417.ece/Young-hungry-helpless

UN,USA

A refugee girl in one of the tents used to house people displaced by xenophobic attacks in South Africa in 2008. Photo: Development Works

A refugee girl in one of the tents used to house people displaced by xenophobic attacks in South Africa in 2008. Photo: Development Works

Beautiful! Exquisite! Professional! Captivating! This is what everyone sang after a well-presented musical play by Lawrence House, a refugee children’s home, which forms part of the Scalabrini Centre’s welfare programmes.

The show, commemorating Lawrence House’s 5th anniversary, was entitled “Mad Word” and was advertised by word of mouth. The “mad word” spread and it generated more than a hundred audience members.

While some disturbing incidences of xenophobia have flared up in South Africa after the 2010 FIFA World Cup, and a number of foreign nationals have left their homes in fear, this show displayed the theme of unity and love and emphasised the importance of “a happy family”.

Formed in 2005, Lawrence House is dedicated specifically to the care of abandoned and unaccompanied refugee minors. Its motto is the Bible verse “I was a stranger and you accepted me”. The House and its separate teenager cottage can accommodate up to 30 children. Boys and girls between the ages of 6 and 18 are taken in. Currently the House shelters children from Angola, DRC, Rwanda and Zimbabwe.

We at Creative Consulting & Development Works are firm believers in equal rights and observing the Constitution of South Africa, that is why we have also worked with the NGO for refugees, Adonis Musati Project.

If children from different walks of life can come together and use their talents to put on such a wonderful show, why can’t we as adults bury our differences and work together as well?