Kliptown family living in squalid conditions rescued
From 1903, Kliptown was home to squatter camps.
Kliptown is steeped in a rich history of struggle. The area was once a melting pot of the diverse cultures in South Africa and many anti-apartheid activists earned their struggle credentials fighting the apartheid government with Kliptown as their base of operations.
Little wonder then, that the Freedom Charter was adopted there on June 26 almost 62 years ago. It is the oldest residential district of the South Western Townships also known as Soweto.
From 1903, Kliptown was home to squatter camps, and the area now contains a mixture of purpose-built housing and a large number of shacks and other informal homes which form the Chris Hani and Dlamini informal settlements.
Amongst these shacks or informal settlements, people are living in conditions that most of us cannot even fathom. One can consider these conditions as some of the worst living conditions, but for some of the inhabitants, it is all normal.
Poverty is so bad in such an area that people have succumbed to it and consider it acceptable. This is not because they choose to stay there; sometimes it is a choice, but it also because there is nowhere else for them to go.
Nonkosi Masondo is a victim of this extreme poverty. Masondo is a 33-year-old, unemployed woman who has been living in these conditions for approximately six years.
She was left stranded after her mother ejected her from the family home, wanting nothing to do with her.
The single, unemployed mother and her 10-year-old son, Sandile, live in a shack overflowing with filthy water. The squatter is filled with boxes, old the and wooden boards, which are placed over the water as if they were tiles.
The shack in which they live threatens to collapse during severe weather and her son has not been registered at school since birth.
On Thursday, June 22, community leader Cheryl Pillay and the Emergency Management Services representatives went into Kliptown to examine the family’s living conditions.
A social worker from the Department of Social Development interviewed Masondo in an effort to ascertain what the factors were which pushed her into these appalling living conditions.
After Masondo explained her situation, she was checked out for any psychological difficulties, as well as a general check-up.
Shortly afterwards, the social worker took a decision to remove the child from the squalid living conditions with Masondo’s consent. Cheryl Pillay who’s always giving a helping hand, then took the child to a safe house until an alternative solution is reached.
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