Katherine Morse is an Australian who is the Director of IKhaya le themba, Home of Hope, offering holistic After School Care to primary school kids in Imizamo Yeth township in Hout Bay.

Background

As a family we spent a year in Joburg in 2003, doing volunteer work. We fell in love with SA, and really got heart sore upon our return to Sydney. All of us, even the kids. We loved that it was easy to do small things that made a difference; we loved that being here made us feel alive in a way that we didn’t back in Australia.

In Australia I was a child and family psychologist, and I’ve been doing that kind of work with NGOs for over 20 years now. It took us three years as a family to immigrate from Australia to Cape Town, which we felt would be a really nice city for our kids to grow up in.

IKhayalethemba

Ikhayalethemba was founded by Liesl Eliastam and I met her in 2005. She shared with me her dream for the place, which was around supporting families affected by HIV and AIDS. At that point she thought that it was going to be an orphanage, but they did research which showed that the community was tired of having their kids taken away, and that the outcomes for kids stuck in an orphanage wasn’t very good either. So the plan evolved to an aftercare school providing family support that cared for the kids within the context of their community.

I’ve been here for five and a half years now. If you can imagine sitting in the mud, and literally, the shit – because there was sewage running through here, rubbish all around the edges, and Port Jackson trees in the whole block – that’s what it was first like here. We got a refurbished fishing container for the first year and a half, then toilets (which was really exciting), and then most of the buildings we have were built last year.

We started by running aftercare programs for 40 kids on 2 afternoons a week, and we now cater for 105 kids on 5 afternoons a week. Our formula is affordable and sustainable compared with orphan care, and the outcomes are much better for the kids. They remain connected with their friends and families within the context of their community. For us it’s a failure if a family feels that they can’t support their child anymore, and send him or her away to a granny in the Eastern Cape. We want them to stay here, where they have their family connections and their safety network.

We try and fill the parent gap when, say, a family member dies, and be an extra pair of helping hands. Which is also why we keep our program at 105 kids, because it wouldn’t feel like a family if we had 300-odd kids screaming around.

Emotional Challenges

Part of it is keeping the bigger picture in mind. Knowing that you’re on a journey with the child, and that even though there may be the painful death of a family member, a sexual assault (which there is a lot of), or the breakdown of a parent-child relationship, you work through that phase and try to move and look at what structures you can put into place for the child so that you can hold on to hope.

Do you feel South African now, five and a half years later?

Ja, I do. In terms of my commitment to the country and the poverty and the complexities of the social justice issues, I do. If you keep your heart open in South Africa to the things that are around you, then it will draw a level of compassion out of you that you don’t experience living in Australia. Because while there are social issues there, life is easier, simpler, and more ‘Teflon-coated’. Although that makes you feel safe, it’s also sometimes a bit like the difference between going to a 5 star hotel and living in luxury versus going on a wild adventure holiday where you are challenged as to who you are in terms of what is going on around you. I love the adventure here, feeling alive.

Have you had days when you’re like ‘what am I doing here?’

Yes. When I don’t like the school system. When I don’t like the lack of healthcare. There are safety nets in Australia – such as good medical aid for my family – which I miss. I get frustrated when I see that bureaucracy can impact on the life of a child. For example, when a child is living with a big sister because mommy has abandoned her, but mommy is still receiving the pension payment and basically robbing the child. Or when a child starts school and has a learning disability, and the process of that child being assessed goes on for years and years until that child is so cross and depressed and downtrodden by the system, that they become a vagrant in the township. That drives me nuts.

Do you consider yourself a leader?

Yes, I do. My understanding of leadership is still growing. Leaders need to be learning all the time. And part of my learning is that with each time that I’m with, seeing how they respond to me. And that often surprises me. For example we had a team day a few months ago, and two of the women from the community expressed that my coming here and having faith in this community had given them hope.

They said that they saw that I was willing to keep loving this place, and this community, in a place where they had no love, and that inspired them to care in a way that they hadn’t done before. And I didn’t know that I did that. It was amazing to hear. Leadership is often about passing on what you carry to other people. I want to do myself out of a job. If the people here have in their hearts the things that I have held, and that they’re going to carry it, then that is awesome.

Inspirational story

One of our grannies, for example, is caring for her grandchildren because her daughter died of AIDS. She goes to the clinic and sees people taking their TB medication without food. And she’s like ‘this isn’t OK. These people are sick and sitting here all day with no food’. So this granny, who’s been really impacted by AIDS herself, has a heart for TB patients and decides to start a soup kitchen. She’s here every week now, cooking soup. And making food gardens so she can put veggies in her soup. That’s a total flow-on effect. If I
love and care for this community, and pass that on to my staff, who pass it on to the mommies and grannies, transformation can happen.

Does a lot of that have to do with you being a foreigner?

I know that me being Australian has made it easier to ask questions about culture that might have been more awkward to ask if I was a white South African woman. If you have a history, then that plays a part in the context of your relationship, and you have to work on a reconciliation of other things that I don’t carry with me. That’s made it easier for me, in my work.

Are you hopeful?

I am. Archbishop Desmond Tutu says that wherever you are, do your little bit of good, and all those bits of good together overwhelm the world. And I do believe that. I see that here at iKhaya. The things that we do I could never have done on my own, but when everybody comes and does their little bit, they build up who we are and what we are doing. Together, they are transformative.

Please visit: www.ikhayalethemba.com

Santam replied with their own video:

Whether Nandos will accept their challenge and deliver meals to the children’s home is anyone’s guess, but it’s good to see a big corporation like Santam get involved in the fun.

The STIHL Lumberjack Festival was held at Lievland Wine Estate in Stellenbosch last weekend! Thank you to all of you who came and had a blast!

Die Burger covered the event, check it out here