Our Children
“A person’s a person, no matter how small”
– Dr. Seuss
Many of the children who arrive at Ethandweni have been left to fend for themselves either through the death of their parents, abandonment, neglect, abuse or other such circumstances. In traditional communities in Zimbabwe there was no such thing as an orphan. If parents died, their children were automatically and without question absorbed into the extended family and the community as a whole.
Today, due to people leaving their traditional communities to seek work and opportunities elsewhere, together with the difficult financial situation, the extended family system has all but collapsed.
Added to this is the AIDS pandemic: it is believed that 22.5 million people in Africa are HIV positive and Zimbabwe has its fair share with 25 percent of the population infected. This means a burgeoning orphan population (that are also often medically declared HIV positive) is estimated to be roughly one million children at the last count. No extended family system, no matter how strong, could absorb numbers on such a massive scale.
The harsh reality is that the everyday life of an orphaned or vulnerable child is often marked by violence and neglect. Poverty, hunger and lacking medical care take countless children’s lives every single year. For those that do survive, the impact is as such that it destroys any prospects the child may have for a future.
As such, the work of a home such as Ethandweni, which literally and figuratively means ‘The Place of Love’ in Ndebele, has, therefore, never been more critical.