On a rainy Monday, we visited an orphanage home in the township of Alexander, near Sandton, South Africa, where we witnessed first-hand the immediate impact of USAID and Trump’s squabbles.
Ratang Bana is an orphanage situated in the heart of Alex, the poorest township in Johannesburg, neighbouring the country’s economic hub called Sandton. The orphanage is run by an elderly lady, Mom Ingrid, and assisted by her brother. These are the community champions who are at the face of the atrocities of poverty, HIV/Aids, and all kinds of dark evil social injustices happening to children and women in the area.
It is war out there, and people such as Mom Ingrid and her brother are taking the challenge head on. But on Monday I walked into an office of depleted soldiers who were at a loss as to how to take the next step without the USAID funding. It is at this point I was reminded of the iconic American Rapper Tupac when he said, “They’ve got money for wars, but they can’t feed the poor.” This quote perfectly captures the situation people such as Mom Ingrid are faced with. Donald Trump would rather finance world wars instead of looking after the poor.
Were these monies misused by most people? Most certainly, but deal with corruption and save lives, you cannot throw water down the drain with the baby inside the basin, that’s unethical.
“We had to lay off 70 staff members who were HIV/Aids patients’ caregivers,” Mom Ingrid explained. “These empty containers we ran HVI/Aids training programs for caregivers. We kept food parcels to distribute to households identified by caregivers, you cannot take ARVs on an empty stomach,” she said.
“Right now I am sitting with a 13-year-old girl that gave birth to a baby 6 days ago, impregnated by her father, I have been crying since the incident, but I have to dust myself up and face the situation because no one else will, the father ran away and he is nowhere to be found, the mother is no more, I cannot turn a blind eye to this, immediately I become a mother to these kids. Now I have to figure out how to buy baby’s milk, transport for the 13-year-old to attend the clinic where she is receiving counselling,” an emotional Mom Ingrid said.
“We do not want people’s money, we want people to stop for a moment and look at what is happening right next to them, and hopefully help with a food parcel, a baby’s formula milk and so on,” she concluded.
I asked them what their immediate need is as Ratang Bana Orphanage and here is the list:
- Baby formula milk
- Food Parcels
- And school transportation
The orphanage has a 15-seater vehicle which has broken down and requires fixing. The little funding from the government leaves Mom Ingrid stuck with the decision to fix the vehicle or buy food parcels? And here is why the transport is important for them: they must take children to school, the clinic, the hospitals, and the police station.
“A Few months back, I took in children from the same household who were left with their granny because their mother was arrested for the attempted murder after stabbing her 3-year-old with a beer bottle. The granny was sick and, in the hospital, and so the kids had to come and stay at Ratang Bana because there were no relatives. She later received a call from the hospital that the granny had passed on, now Mom Ingrid had to arrange a funeral for the granny.
Now you can read these stories and detach yourself from them and think of it as Mom Ingrid and Ratang Bana’s problem, again I fall back to Tupac’s words in a song called Brenda’s got a baby “(That’s not our problem, that’s up to Brenda’s family) Well, let me show you how it affects our whole community.” These stories affect you and me, and at some point, we need to pause from our busy schedule and look at these stories, if there is still a little bit of humanity left in us, Mom Ingrid and her brother will not be facing these alone.
USAID and Trump’s squabbles will not be a death sentence for our less privileged brothers and sisters. We cannot blame USAID and Trump’s squabbles when such stories are happening outside our gates.
We have become desensitized by our ambition to accumulate riches, we cannot hide under the banner of “we are already giving somewhere,” no, here another place to give. We cannot be chasing after luxury and comfort while people are dying at our doorsteps. We know the government should be doing more, but because they are corrupt, they do not, nor can we fold our arms and hide behind that excuse.
Let us be humans and show our resilience by taking care of our own!
Get in touch with Mom Ingrid on +27 76 356 2272, you can call or WhatsApp her.