Foster home struggles to keep its doors open without funding and resources

Mirriam Ntsele (73) runs the Thandabantu Community Centre, a shelter-type foster home in Geduld, which seems to lie on the brink of despair.

She has run the home since 2013, where she temporarily shelters mothers and their children in dire situations, but things have not gone well because the home faces a myriad problems.

“We struggle with food and basic necessities because I do not receive any government funding.”

The mother of two boys, who help her with the day-to-day running of the home, says things have become increasingly challenging and expensive.

“Most times, the mothers bring their children but after a little, they abandon their children here, and that is where the trouble starts.”

She adds that she has put all the children through school, clothed and fed them.

“Since there has been no electricity in over a decade, we have had to rent out nearby back rooms to keep the fridges running and the washing machines going on laundry days. We cook with gas.”

Besides her sons’ small donations, she sells clothes and koeksisters and uses her grant money to upkeep the home.

“I also try to equip the mothers with some business skills so that when they leave the shelter, they can fend for themselves and their children.”

She currently houses 17 small children, four teenagers, two adults and two mothers with their children. Not everyone had a space to sleep in the house, so she added some outside rooms and makeshift additions.

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There is also a bed under a carport. When asked how the home’s residents came into her care, she says she receives many emergency calls from the Kwa-Thema and Springs Child Welfare Society and the Springs SAPS.

“Sometimes, they might bring them to me when there is an emergency and people or children need to be immediately removed from a situation.”

Even through the hardships, Ntsele says she loves what she does.

“It was my husband’s dream before he passed and now it has become mine. God put me on this earth to love and care for people, which is what I will do until I can’t anymore.”

The Springs Advertiser contacted the welfare society to ask for more information about Ntsele’s situation. The manager, Sanet Moerkerken, says the home started as a shelter and this has not changed.

“Thus, there could not be any funding she could apply for to assist in running the shelter for families with children. It was never meant that she would care for children on their own without a parent living with them.”

When asked about the home’s dire situation, Moerkerken says the office was only recently made aware of how bad things are for Ntsele, “Unfortunately, the office was made aware of the conditions just after Christmas when a ward councillor contacted me.”

Moerkerken also stresses that the many children at Thandabantu were not their doing.

“The many children there without a parent have not been by the office’s doing. As a screened foster parent, and if your circumstances allow, a person or couple can legally have six children in their care.

“Mirriam, out of the goodness of her heart, has helped all the welfare organisations when space is needed for a short while and the SAPS has brought the mothers with children there and then the mothers leave.”

Moerkerken does not think there is a simple way to solve all the home’s many problems.

“The children will have to be moved to other suitable care, either in a children’s home or attempts must be made to trace relatives, find the mothers and investigate the reasons for the abandonment.”

Moerkerken also says they were unaware of anyone sleeping outside, “Whenever I or my staff did home visits, the information given was always that the children sleep in the house, never outside.

“Thus, this was verbalised, and the staff have never seen children sleeping outside.”

To help or for more information, call Ntsele on 078 290 4696.