Africa’s AIDS Orphans Need Shelter, Too
AIDS orphans sometimes move to an orphanage, sometimes stay in their family home, sometimes become homeless, but most often move to increasingly crowded guardian households.
With so little to leave to their children, and the services of a notary costing more than they can afford, most parents do not leave a will that states who will look after the children or who will inherit their property. Many children do not have birth certificates, and there are seldom death certificates issued when people die.
Without these basic documents, it becomes difficult to protect the orphans from losing their houses. In addition, rural families often do not have title deeds to their land, especially where the land is tribal. Very often, the families themselves do not see any advantage in having title deeds, as their neighbors all recognize the land as theirs. Without parents being taught about the importance of succession planning, orphans are vulnerable to losing their homes.
In sub-Saharan Africa, property is traditionally passed down through the sons, so if a father or both parents die, the property will often be taken over by an uncle. Women are not entitled to land, so the children (and their mother if she is still alive) will also become the property of the uncle. In most cases this means the uncle has more people to look after, but it sometimes leads to the orphans becoming homeless.
Habitat for Humanity Housing Project
I visited a pilot housing project in South Africa that is also being piloted in Mozambique, Uganda, Zambia and Lesotho. It aims to provide orphans with a secure home by building on the family homestead a decent home in which they can live until they are ready to move away. It is not temporary accommodation, or a home that belongs to someone else in which they are guests, but a home with a guardian that they can call their own.
I spoke with Jikisobane Mchnunu, an orphan who cares for seven brothers and sisters, on her local public works department salary of R370 (45) a month. Her previous house of mud and wattle was crumbling, with gaping holes in the walls and roof.
Speaking in the new house she had built with Habitat for Humanity, she said that even more than having strong walls and a roof that does not leak, she likes her new house because, “this house is better for the children. At the other house we did not feel well but in this house we feel OK”. That sense of freedom and liberation comes across in every Habitat household I visit – a sense that they are not in temporary accommodation, but at home in every sense of the word.
The new house has three bedrooms and is made of brick with a nutek roof. Jikisobane said the children are able to study better because the concrete floors are easier to study on than the dirt floors, and the children are able to leave their school books out without them getting spoiled by rain leaking in from the roof.
Having windows means there is more light inside to read by. They spend more time at school now because they are sick less often.
“I am happy that we now have a house that will not fall down in the rain,” says Jikisobane.
Judy Bottomley is a freelance writer based in Johannesburg, South Africa.
About Habitat for Humanity
Habitat for Humanity is a nondenominational Christian charity dedicated to eliminating poverty housing. Habitat has built more than 200 000 houses and more than one million people are living in Habitat homes they helped build and are buying through low-cost, no-profit mortgages. Currently working in 100 countries around the globe, Habitat’s Europe & Central Asia regional headquarters are in Budapest, Hungary. The ECA region is actively fundraising, building and renovating homes with families in need. www.habitateurope.org