goGo Annie Ntombinaye Zwane

When Annie Ntombinaye Zwane (50), was just two-years-old she was orphaned. Knowing from first-hand experience what this means emotionally and physically, having been passed around from one family to the next, she has made it her life mission to look after children, in particular orphans. She is currently supporting 20 young children aged six to fifteen.

Known to those close to her as Naye, she hails from Bhethani Village in the rural town of Nongoma, KwaZulu-Natal. After losing both of her parents, Naye was placed in the care of several different families until she was finally adopted and brought up by the Sibiya’s in Vryheid. She finished school, married and raised a family of her own. She has four children and 1 grandchild.

Naye is a founder member of Siyazama Emakhaya Gardening Project where she teaches elderly women in the community to produce crafts and vegetables to sell in order to meet subsistence needs. She recalls several stories told by the grannies in this group of how they struggled to access social grants for their children, how they battled to make ends meet, unable to feed their sick and orphaned grandchildren, and how many had lost hope. She began to give them hope and to provide a link to support opportunities.

Naye says, “One of my biggest challenges is to assist families of orphaned children to obtain Foster Care Grants, as this is a complex process that requires several assessments to be conducted by social workers. It often takes a long time, sometimes up to 2 years to process these applications and families often resort to the Child Care Grant, which is easier to access, but a lesser amount.”

Her work with orphans involves different kinds of help. She visits the affected families and schools in the community to assess the situation; she assists foster parents and grannies to obtain birth certificates, ID documents and affidavits and accompanies them to government offices to apply for grants. She also sensitizes schools to be aware of the special needs of children, especially the orphaned and ensures that schools offer them food and support. She also involves young children in the crafts and gardening activities working alongside their grannies.

Naye is now a loveLife goGogetter, one of 500 grandmothers across South Africa specially trained to support children. She will receive a R300 stipend each month to make sure that she can reach more young people. She says she, “feels fortunate to have come into contact with loveLife and hopes that this is a journey, which will bring her opportunities to learn and share her experiences with other grannies in the KZN province”.