She lies frail and pale on her mother’s lap, covered with a thin green blanket despite the cold breeze that sweeps across the area after an afternoon rainstorm. Report by Jairos Saunyama Own Correspondent
Flies can be seen hovering over her. Her mother, wearing a sorrowful face, uses her hand to keep the stubborn flies away.
Her face seems to have been redesigned as patterns of veins are seen all over the once beautiful face.
But the girl is not sick. Instead, she is pondering on how she can turn her dream of becoming a medical doctor into a reality after coming out with flying colours in her Matric and Cambridge exams.
This is the sad story of a 19-year-old who gave her name as Tendai Chingore — one of the young Zimbabweans staying at Central Methodist Church in South Africa. She has nothing to do after completing her Matric and “A” levels in South Africa.
Zimbabweans in South Africa, unlike the locals, cannot access bursaries and scholarships to pursue their studies in desired fields and the South African government cannot fund foreign nationals for their tertiary education.
Chingore, who hails from Mutoko, Zimbabwe, is one of the girls who escaped the wrath of xenophobic attacks in Soweto in 2003 which saw her family taking refuge at the church situated in Johannesburg.
Her mother, a domestic worker in the nearby suburbs, cannot afford to raise funds to send her daughter to a tertiary institution. Instead, the little she gets is used for food as the refugees are not getting much in form of aid. She revealed their plight to this reporter in an exclusive interview.
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“Life is so cruel and sometimes I ask God why,” Tendai said with tears trickling down her cheeks.
She gathered her confidence again after taking a break.
“My mother is struggling to make ends meet here. We came to South Africa in 2000 and I have been going to South African schools until 2011.
“All along I have been going to school for free, but now the South African government cannot take foreigners to universities.
“I could have gone to university last year, but failed because of financial constraints.
“There is not much activity in this camp and I end up going out to work as a domestic worker on part-time basis. “I get R80 per day and it won’t last as I use some of it for transport and upkeep.
“Each time I think of my future I get sick. I have been asking my mother if we can return home (Zimbabwe). The plea has been falling on deaf ears.
“Sometimes I think of going back home, but I don’t know much about Mutoko since I came here at a tender age,” she said. “Despite this camp being infested by people from different countries, we have one thing in common, we share the same plight of being in a foreign country.
“So in order to get the best for ourselves, teachers — especially from Zimbabwe, who are also in this camp — teamed up and registered with Cambridge through the embassy.
“After that, they started offering lessons for free and guess what, this camp had a 96% pass rate.
“I scored 14 points and I want to pursue my dream of becoming a medical doctor,” she said.
After narrating her experience, her mother opened her mouth for the first time giving her words of comfort and strength. “You will be alright. Very soon you will be back at school. Just be strong,” she said.
Her mother refused to comment further, but confirmed what her daughter had said.
“You heard it yourself,” she said before hanging her head in despair.
This is the plight of many students in South Africa — especially in refugee camps — who after completing Matric or Cambridge are failing to go further with education.
Some of the students end up doing menial jobs such as working as bar tenders, with some girls of Tendai’s age indulging in prostitution in order to survive.
Peter Magaso founder of Peter Magaso Foundation — a charity organisation that identifies and helps school leavers in trouble — told NewsDay that a number of young Zimbabwean students had their dreams shattered despite possessing qualifications to make their dreams a reality.
“The situation here is really bad. Students are stranded here despite passing well.
“The most affected are those at refugee centres like the Methodist church. The students were taught by volunteers and they had 96% pass rate and are among the best in Gauteng province.
“Our foundation has identified 45 girls so far who are in need of assistance to go to school.
“We decided to identify female students because they are more fragile as compared to their male counterparts.
“Most of them end up indulging in prostitution.
“We are appealing to wellwishers to assist us with funds so that we help the girl child in South Africa,” he said.
There is a significant population of Zimbabweans in South Africa, making up the country’s largest group of foreign migrants. There are about 1,5 million Zimbabweans in South Africa which is, in fact, a tenth of Zimbabwe’s population.
From 1994 onwards, the South African government displayed increasing hostility to skilled immigration from the rest of Africa.
However, this has not served to reduce the number of immigrants. Zimbabwean migration to South Africa since 2000 has been described as the “largest concentrated flow” in the country’s history.
Migrants previously consisted of young people arriving alone to look for work, but since 2000 there is an increasing shift towards women, children and the elderly who are not able to work and require humanitarian assistance. However, there were xenophobic attacks where South Africans wanted to wipe off all foreigners. This saw some of the displaced Zimbabweans taking refuge in churches and other designated places.
Among the camps is Methodist Church which hosts a number of Zimbabweans and has been providing refuge to victims of the xenophobic attacks on foreigners in the early 2000s.
The Central Methodist Mission in downtown Johannesburg has a tradition of social activism dating back to apartheid times. Originally a white congregation, it is now almost entirely black and thoroughly middle class in appearance, though its bishop is white.
During the height of the xenophobic attacks, it began providing a place for refugees and migrants to sleep. It provides no food or bedding, but does facilitate entry into a primary school. However, some refugees feel that the facility is unsafe because there is no control over entrance into the church. Apparently, criminals prey on the residents.
