ANC assists needy family

Two teenagers in the Bloemfontein child-headed family do not have identity documents and need them urgently to start looking for jobs

ANC officials used their door-to-door election campaign to visit and pledge to assist in the plight of a Mangaung Phase 3 family of 10 that is headed by a 21-year-old woman.

Morose faces were all that filled the partially empty house that is home to the Mojakisane offsprings who have been abandoned by the mother of the house. She now lives with another man who is not their father.

No one in the household is employed and their only source of income is the social grants of four younger children in the family. Twenty one-year-old Matshediso Mojakisane has been looking after her four siblings, an orphaned cousin, her sister’s two children and two of her own, since she was 18.

She claims that when her mother left them to their own devices, the only course open to her and her sister was to make babies to guarantee a continuous influx of cash into the family through child protection grants.

Mojakisane said she needs to get identification documents for her two siblings aged at 18 and 20 since they are unable to find work.

“As if our problems are not enough, my 14-year-old brother was kicked out from school after the principal accused him of being involved in satanic practises. I know we are poor, but the other kids are making fun of my brother because he is something of a recluse.”

She said her family is struggling to make ends meet and would like to get food parcels for all her dependants so they can have a meal everyday like their neighbours. She would also like to see her home furnished because the grant she receives is not enough to buy furniture.

ANC provincial organiser, Thembeni Nxangisa said the party will help members of the family who do not have ID’s to obtain the important documents. He said the ANC will also ensure that the 14-year-old boy, who was kicked out of school, returns to school next year, because every child in the country is entitled to education.

Nxangisa said the ANC will rope in government departments and law enforcement agencies to assist the family and try to trace the mother of children who has dumped them to live with her lover. She still receives the child grant money for the four children she is not supporting.

A member of the ANC veterans in the province, Kereleng Kgoe said the children are living in difficult circumstances and need help. She said, as a woman who also has her own children, she feels that she should do something to assist the poverty-stricken family.

Kgoe promised to bring the family clothes and bedding to keep them warm. She also promised to engage other members of the veterans associations to look into possible ways of helping the family.