Sunday Times (Johannesburg) - June 11, 2006
Phindile Chauke

IF YOU heard straight-A student Nolwandle Khuzwayo talking about her ambitions, you'd never suspect that she's an orphan.

The 15-year-old Grade 10 pupil at Finetown Secondary School, whose greatest wish is to become a pilot, lives in abject poverty with her big sister in the Mountain View informal settlement outside Ennerdale.

Nolwandle and her sister, Ayanda, 19, are just two of the 35 000 orphans the Gauteng Department of Social Development says live in the province.

According to the department, of these 35000, only 800 live in child-headed homes. However, the department says the number could be much higher.

Nolwandle and her sister Ayanda depend on food parcels handed out at the Zenzele Community Centre.

Zenzele's founder, Winnie Mabaso, said her centre supplied food and clothes to 1700 orphans living in the Finetown area.

After their mother died of a respiratory illness in 2003, Nolwandle dropped out of school in despair, but returned after a few weeks. The sisters never knew their father who, they were told, had died in KwaZulu-Natal.

"I went back to school while my sister tried to get food for us. I now want to be able to do something big for her for trying to care for me the best way she could," she said.

"If children who do not have parents do not go to school, they will stay poor. They must not let their circumstances stand in their way to success."

Nolwandle says she appreciates the sacrifices made by Soweto's class of 1976. More than 20000 pupils from Soweto began a protest march on June 16 against Afrikaans being imposed as a medium of instruction in schools. Hundreds of people, many of them youths, were killed during clashes with police and the violence that erupted during the subsequent weeks.

"Were it not for them, we would not be going to school at little cost or have access to university bursaries," she said.

But less than a kilometre down the road, another of Finetown's orphans, a 17-year-old HIV-positive girl, lives in a dark, one-room home with her 19-year-old sister. While her peers celebrate Youth Day this Friday, she will be queueing for a food parcel at Zenzele Community Centre.

She contracted HIV while caring for her father, who died from an Aids-related illness three years ago. The father had not confided his HIV status and she did not wear gloves while caring for him on his death bed. Her mother died of an Aids-related illness in 1991.

Both daughters dropped out of school when their father became ill and could no longer afford the fees.

When Metro visited them, the older sister had gone with her 16-month old daughter to fetch their meal at Zenzele.

The 17-year-old still dreams of the "good life", but said illness had delayed her return to school. "But I will be going back next year. I have always dreamed of becoming a doctor."

Commenting on Zenzele, the 17-year-old said: "They treat us well. They do not only give us food and clothes - they also check on us and make us feel loved."

Mabaso, 70, established Zenzele, which means "do it yourself", in 1999. In the afternoons the centre provides free care for orphans under the age of six who are brought in by relatives.

Mabaso, along with 46 volunteers, tries to provide them with a loving, clean place where they are fed. She believes more than 70% of Finetown's residents are unemployed and says HIV-Aids is rampant.

She is determined that her charges "make a better future for themselves". So much so that she even pays school fees for some of the children because a number of the local schools are unsympathetic to their plight.

"I always tell myself that when I am gone they will take care of themselves and help others," she said. "No one can take education away from them."

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