Grant Clark

The child-support grant was launched in 1998 to assist poor parents and caregivers of children up to the age of seven. To qualify for the grant, rural recipients must earn less than R800 a month and their urban counterparts no more than R1 100. But the social welfare system struggled to get the ball rolling amid accusations of maladministration.

Every day at dusk, Inkosi Mbuyiseni Ntuli (74) locks his modest home in rural northern KwaZulu-Natal and heads into dense bush to find a place to sleep. The chief joins more than 100 families too afraid to sleep in their beds in the Mbongolwane district, near Eshowe. They are part of a remote community being terrorised by a group of heavily armed gunmen whose attacks have left more than 10 people dead.

Hadima Ebrahim Ally (72) can’t remember the last time she felt this elated. Casting her eyes over the cheering crowds and beyond, to the city skyline and harbour in the distance, the great grandmother adjusts her hijab (scarf) and beams. A land claim victory is a homecoming for a Durban community descended from Zanzibari slaves.