INSTITUTIONALIZED CHILD CARE IN URBAN SOUTH AFRICA

disease plays a role in the institutionalization of children. Despite the fact that antiretrovirals
and other supplements are funded by the South African government,
awareness and inefficient distribution serve as barriers for many of the families in need of
such treatments. Many families take note of the option of a children’s home or orphanage
as a more efficient means to ensure that proper medications were received. The short life
expectancy resulting from the disease claims a significant number of lives of parents of
young children. Also prevalent in the country’s black communities is an extremely high
rate of single motherhood, meaning when mothers fall extremely ill, a child is further
deprived of immediate paternal care-taking.
The cases that I learned about at 5Cees, whether from Pastor Mike, Nancy Mudau,
or the children themselves, featured many commonalities. The conditions for
institutionalization would typically begin at birth, with the conditions of poverty, a
mother’s infection and often the abandonment by the child’s father. A child’s mother
might manage to raise him or her through the toddler stage, but health often worsened
shortly afterwards. At this point, caretaking responsibilities might be passed along to a
sibling or grandmother, many of whom also live in impoverished conditions. The option
for institutionalization typically surfaces once it becomes clear that the new caretaker is
unable to provide for an adequate childhood. Many grandparents who are put into the role
of caretaker pass away before the end of childhood, in which case children are considered
“twice orphaned.”
Nancy Mudau noted that it was often through her or Pastor Mike that children were
admitted to the center. Pastor Mike, on his visits to townships for ministry purposes,
would often encounter an ailing mother and receive a direct request to take in her
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