INSTITUTIONALIZED CHILD CARE IN URBAN SOUTH AFRICA

encouragement. This program had gone through several iterations.
“You had a lot of mentors who did their jobs well. They would come here, sign out
with their mentee, and take them to lunch at Wimpy’s.” (Wimpy’s is a fast-food chain in
South Africa, the equivalent to a Burger King.) But Pastor Mike then mentioned, “there
were a lot of kids who didn’t have mentors as diligent who would wonder why they were
being neglected, or why they weren’t deserving of Wimpy’s. It set off a lot of self esteem
issues, so I had to tell Ray. He thanked me when I told him, because he wasn’t aware of
how big an issue that had become.”
Raymond Amm managed the relationship between Bryanston Bible Church and
5Cees and I had the opportunity to talk to him during a visit a team from the church made
to the center. The church brings a team over on Wednesday nights to put on social
programs for the teenagers, and on this occasion I was able to get a short open window of
time to talk to Raymond. “It’s true,” he told me of Pastor Mike’s recount. “I’ve been
trying to get that program to work well for five years, and half the time it did. We heard
those success stories of real bonds being formed and so on. But it was the rest of the time
that was concerning. So, I’ve just scrapped it. We do group outings now, which I still
think provides the opportunity for those positive relationships to form, but gives us a little
safety net from that whole abandonment issue.”
After my conversation with Ray I went to rejoin the group activity being hosted by
the church. It was a mock version of Dragon’s Den, the South African equivalent of the
television show Shark Tank. The teenagers were tasked with inventing a product and then
pitching it to a panel of judges, composed of volunteers from the church. Among the
products invented by the children were luxury chocolates (sculpted from play-doh), a
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