Stories

March 2011 – With the help of donations from Shoeburyness Baptist Church in the UK we have been able to help two families build houses.  The story of one of those families is given below.

The old house

Busisiwe is 18.  She has a 12 year old sister and a 2 year old brother.  They used to live in Pongola, and it was there that their parents died.  There were problems in the family, so Busisiwe and her siblings decided to move near to a relative of their father’s in Mnqobokazi.  Life has been very tough for them.   So far they have not been able to access death documents for the parents, so they have not been able to get the foster child grant.  Busisiwe dropped out of school so that she could do odd jobs in order to buy food. Lulisandla Kumntwana was able to help them, with uniforms, and food parcels and Busisiwe is now back in school doing Grade 9.  The 12 year old is in Grade 6.  When they go to school they leave the baby with a neighbour.

But their house was in a terrible state and if it rained they had to go and sleep at the neighbour’s as it leaked so badly.

Community members working on the building

With the help from Shoeburyness Baptist Church LK bought the materials to build a new house.  Some of the young people from the LK youth club started the work, and then Saziso, our coordinator, organised a couple of work days with our Family Support Team members.

Now this little family have a two room clean and dry house to live in.  They also have some ongoing support as a family in Pietermaritzburg have committed to sending an amount of money every month for them.  Busisiwe herself is still working hard to care for her siblings.  At weekends and in the holidays she goes to cut reeds, and uses them to make mats and baskets to sell.

The new house almost completed