With a gas heater to ward off the winter chill, a group of grandmothers knits and sews in a room plastered with old newspapers. Around the corner in Cape Town’s Khayelitsha, more grandmothers squeeze into a tiny lounge to do patchwork.
They are part of Grandmothers against Poverty and Aids (Gapa), a support- and income-generating self-help group based in the township, where unemployment and poverty are far-reaching and the spread of HIV/Aids is compounding the problem.
Each woman has lost a child or children to the pandemic and now looks after grandchildren. Some are too young to qualify for pensions but have had to stop working to care for sick children. Others struggle to access state support like the child- care grant because the necessary documentation does not exist.
But the weekly meetings are time to chat, to seek each other’s counsel and do the mfitshi-mfitshi (something from nothing) handiwork, which earns an income. Often other women are — first among themselves, and later in the community — those who start breaking down the stigma around the pandemic.
“My daughter died in 1999 … [In] those days it was a shame. It was difficult to talk about it. For two years I felt so angry. Why me? Why my daughter? She was a breadwinner,” says Constance Sohena (60), one of the 12 grandmother group leaders.
When Gapa started in October 2001 as a pilot project under the auspices of the University of Cape Town’s Albertina and Walter Sisulu Institute of Ageing in Africa, Sohena joined as one of the women attending weekly meetings. Today she is one of the group leaders and, with the other leaders, sits on the executive management committee.
Once a week women gather in her neat, bright-blue home to produce handiwork for sale — anything from cushions and clothes to curtains and blankets — from donated scraps of wool and other textiles. “Other people don’t speak about it [HIV/Aids]. We go into the community [and tell people], ‘There is nothing to be afraid of. My child also died’,” says Sohena.
Gapa advertised its first meeting as “looking for elderly women heads of households”, says director Kathleen Brodrick — no one would have attended had it called for anyone affected by HIV/Aids.
The pilot project ended, but Gapa continued. Today 12 group leaders are in charge of 16 groups with a total of 154 grandmothers caring for 251 grandchildren. The organisation found bursaries for 56 toddlers to attend crèche.
“We are trying to empower the grandmothers,” says Mandisa Mafuya, Gapa project manager. “They are caregivers, but who takes care of them?”
Mafuya, who studied to be a teacher but switched to occupational therapy, specialising in care of the elderly, still cringes at the grilling the grandmothers gave her before she was hired.
Late last year, with a R600 000 donation from I&J, its centre was built. It is the venue for regular, three-day workshops for all interested Khayelitsha residents on subjects such as HIV/Aids awareness, vegetable gardening and accessing grants. About 122 residents have been trained so far.
The centre hosts English literacy classes and community meetings. It has also been identified as a site for the current polio vaccination campaign.
Gapa received official funding of R250 000 late in its three-year existence. It relies on donations of wool, textiles and second-hand clothes. When these are plentiful, the support groups have much to do. Other times there is very little. Gapa also operates a trading store. Each month a different grandmother sells donated second-hand clothes and keeps the proceeds.
A recent visitor from the Eastern Cape, Nadi Khosa*, a relative of one of the Gapa members, has been attending the workshops and weekly meetings. Living with HIV, she came to Cape Town in May to seek assistance.
Next month Khosa will return home, intent on starting a similar support group. “I have learnt a lot. It will help. There [the Eastern Cape], there is nothing unless you go to the clinic.”
*Not her real name