Stuart Hess
MMABATHO THIBEDI (29) is astonished to learn that the government pays child maintenance to some single mothers.
“They [the government] didn’t introduce that policy [child maintenance] in this community,” she says. “If the government offers us the grant, it will make us much happier, the children can get a better education and I’ll have less money problems.”
But is R75 a child a month enough? “It’s a little, but it’s better than nothing,” she says. “I need about R300 a month to look after my children.
“I’ll be very happy if they pay R500, like they do for other mothers today. I can use it to improve my business and to look after my children.”
Thibedi, mother of two – a girl of 11 and a year-old boy – says she barely survives on the little money her mother – a pensioner – gives her. “My mother gives me R100 every month, and sometimes my boyfriend will give me R50 or maybe R100.”
She lives with her mother, brother, three sisters and four children. The family’s chief income is the mother’s pension payment. This is spent in one week and the family then battles to survive.
Thibedi earns between R60 and R80 a week selling schoolbags outside her home in Zone 1 in Meadowlands, on the northern outskirts of Soweto. The income is irregular because some weeks she cannot afford to buy bags.
She was temporarily employed at a paper factory in Johannesburg until late in 1994, but has been jobless since. She says she is desperately looking for a job and will accept any offer of employment.
“The government needs to educate people in Soweto because they never received grants and they don’t know anything about child maintenance.”