Sunday Times - Sunday 07 July, 2002
Mawande Jubasi

A YEAR after their plight was first exposed in the Sunday Times, the Aids orphans of Ingwavuma in KwaZulu-Natal are still facing an uphill battle to make ends meet.

A visit to the poverty-stricken rural area found controversy engulfing the Ingwavuma Orphans' Care Trust - the one organisation that has been helping the orphans.

At the same time, government red tape in the departments of Welfare, Justice and Home Affairs has seen more than 1 000 orphans not receiving grants.

Johnson Gwala - the man hailed as the "Angel of the Aids orphans", who would drive and walk around the district identifying children in need and providing them with food - has been suspended by the project coordinator of the trust , Dr Ann Barnard.

A document of charges, which the Sunday Times has in its possession, claims that Gwala:

Collected meat on behalf of families and did not give it to them;

Irregularly used the organisation's garage card for an amount of R1 200; and

Did not bring delivery slips or complete donations from some donors.

Dr Andrew Ross, superintendent of the Mosvold Hospital and founder of the trust, said the trust had set up structures to ensure accountability and performance after Gwala was suspended.

"We recognise the weaknesses that we had. We did not have systems in place and the project is massive.

"There was no tight supervision and little staff."

Because Gwala has asked for legal representation, there has not yet been a hearing.

Gwala denied all charges and said he was forced to use the petrol card for a family emergency in Durban and was intending to refund the money.

"I am a co-founder of the trust and I know the plight of the children. I cannot steal from them," he said.

While the Department of Social Welfare last year registered 19 orphan grants, and the number has increased to 39 families this year, a backlog is left of more than 1 000 who are not receiving any grants .

Hlengiwe Dlamini, a coordinator of the trust, said that most of the orphans did not qualify for the grant because of government red tape. She said the trust identified 1 200 of the most needy orphans who needed to be supplied with basic foodstuffs while waiting for applications to be processed by Home Affairs and the magistrate's court.

Although almost all the children ought to qualify for the grant, most do not have their birth certificates, or death certificates for their parents.

Gugu Dubazane, the Ingwavuma resident social worker, said she could only intervene once the children had all the legal documents to assist them in applying for the R120 child-support grant or the R450 foster-care grant.

She said the magistrate's court was also overworked, and most of her applications took more than three months before they reached the local magistrate.

Golden-hearted kids open their purses

SOWETO schoolchildren who saved their lunch money last year to help orphans in the Ingwavuma district of KwaZulu-Natal were back this week with another truckload of food, clothing, toys and books.

Led by teacher Bathabile Serei, the pupils from Enkonjeni Senior Phase School in Meadowlands once more saved their money, contributed their old clothing and books and paid their way to Ingwavuma to deliver their donations in person.

Serei said the pupils had established the Children to Children Foundation after last year's visit by two Soweto pupils.

They have increased their contributions by asking neighbours and other schools in the township to help.

On Wednesday, the children embarked on the long trek to Ingwavuma. There they teamed up with the Ingwavuma Orphan s' Care Trust.

Hlengiwe Dlamini, a coordinator of Orphans' Care, could not believe her eyes when she saw the food, clothes and toys.

"This is like a godsend," she said. "We have seen children who have never had anything to wear since they were born. We have seen some that have spent days without eating."

With the Soweto pupils, Dlamini and local social worker Gugu Dubazane divided the food into hundreds of food packages containing 25kg of maize meal, beans, rice and different sorts of tinned vegetables to be distributed to the orphans.

At the first child-headed family, they found 10-year-old Bongiwe Nxumalo and her six-year-old brother Philasande in rags, unwashed and hungry, crying under a tree. Their 16-year-old brother had left in the early morning to find food and had not returned by midday.

Dlamini said they were working against the tide as the number of orphans was increasing daily, while they could not even cope with the present number.

The pupils said they would return with more donations as they aimed to expand their foundation to all schools in Soweto and surrounding townships.

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