While we could throw a bunch of stats at you (which we do down below), it doesn’t paint a complete picture of what the children in the townships, rural villages, and inner cities of South Africa endure on a daily basis.
Here is one child’s story…
Blessing wakes each morning after sharing a mattress on the ground with her little brother, in a tin shack on the outskirts of Soshanguve. Her mom left for work hours ago as she has to leave at 4 am to make the 3 hour trek into Pretoria to her job as a domestic worker. At 10 years old, it is her job to take care of her little brother. She uses the longdrop toilet outside that is shared by several families and she walks a couple blocks to the communal tap and hopes there is water today so she can haul a bucket of water back for her brother and her to bathe in. There is no
food in the tiny shack but her school is part of a feeding programme so she will get porridge if she gets to school on time. It may be her only meal that day. After school, she walks miles out of her way to avoid walking through the neighborhood where she was sexually assaulted by a group of boys last year. They are still terrorizing girls, nobody says anything – it is just part of
being a girl in South Africa.
This is the sad reality for millions of children in South Africa. In addition to the challenges of poor nutrition, lack of access to electricity, toilets and water, and racism embedded in the scars of Apartheid, these are some of the statistics in South Africa that stack the odds against them:
How do children find hope in the face of such overwhelming statistics? Through a God that loves them and has a plan for their life! The challenges they face are impossible to overcome without the inner confidence to know that they can. They have to first believe in themselves before they can influence others. PLAY camps unique curriculum helps them do just that.
