David Harrison
In June this year, 21-year-old Sarah Meintjies, from Lavender Hill (not her real name), missed her menstrual period. The fact that she might be pregnant brought neither joy nor anxiety. She just felt empty. Her desire for love had pushed her into a needy relationship, which now made her feel even more desolate. She didn’t tell her mother because she knew she would be angry. She told her friends who were high on tik, but they just giggled inanely. A few weeks later, she decided she’d better go the antenatal clinic to check if she really was pregnant. She left home before sunrise. Nobody accompanied her.
That day, July 18, a young woman from Kenilworth, Julie Mentor, got up early to buy a tray of fresh cupcakes from her local bakery and took them to the maternal and obstetric unit in Retreat. There, Julie made tea and coffee for the pregnant women in the waiting room and offered the cupcakes around. This was her contribution on Madiba Day. She noticed a young woman sitting quietly in the corner looking pale and uncomfortable, and started a conversation with her. Her name was Sarah Meintjies. Just after midday, Sarah was called in to be seen by the midwife, but not before they had agreed to meet at a Muizenberg café the following Saturday.
There, Sarah confessed to Julie that she’d left home earlier in the week to attend the antenatal clinic without having eaten. She had not known what to expect and had no idea that it would take so long to be seen. The cupcake and sweet tea was a godsend, she said, as she had felt faint. They talked about their lives: Julie has a bachelor’s degree in film and media studies; Sarah left school in Grade 9. Julie is well connected to family and friends; Sarah couldn’t name anyone other than her boyfriend to whom she felt close. Julie loves babies and was about to adopt a beautiful baby boy. Sarah didn’t know what she felt about babies, but she was amazed that a complete stranger had shown an interest in her and wanted to talk about her pregnancy. She was even more astounded when Julie drove her home to Lavender Hill. Over the next month, they talked together several times. It was difficult, because Sarah shares a single cellphone with several relatives. But in that time, Sarah and Julie connected across the divides of race and class, as mothers-to-be.
Generally, whether or not we succeed as adults is determined by our first few years of life. In 2015, about 75 000 children will be born in the metropole of Cape Town. By 2020, the fate of those children will have been largely decided. Half of them will make it in life. They will complete school, get decent jobs and contribute to the economy. If current statistics are anything to go by, the other half won’t. Ten thousand will be stunted through poor nutrition; most will not attend early childhood development programmes and more than 30 000 will drop out of school.
Those children on the high road will develop knowledge and new skills exponentially, as they build on the brain circuits laid down in pregnancy and the first years of life. Children on the lower trajectory will struggle to learn, and the gaps between the two groups will widen as they grow older. On which path a child ends up depends mainly on one factor, namely his or her home environment. Access to health and social services is important, but not as influential as home circumstances. After all, in the first thousand days of life, a child and his mother will be in contact with state-provided services only for about 20 days. For the rest, they’re at home. There, the child’s development will rely on the basic inputs of food, love, safety and parental interaction. These factors seem almost too simple in driving young brains to greater complexity, but the human body is genetically programmed to blossom in the right conditions.
Drawing on several longitudinal studies, a US psychologist, Ann Masten, has identified three conditions that can protect and nurture children in the face of material poverty. They are: caring parents, another significant adult in the life of a child and modest connections to opportunity at key points of transition. She calls this the “ordinary magic” that can change a child’s life. While decent jobs and living wages are fundamental, greater “connectedness” can begin to counter the effects of social and economic inequality. An evaluation of the Philani Health and Nutrition Programme has shown that companionship of mothers helps them to cope better in difficult circumstances and, as a result, their children grow better.
This is the thinking behind Cape Town Embrace, which aims to connect people across the divides of race and class. It involves establishing one-on-one relationships between caring “connectors” and young parents, to enable their children to thrive. It’s not about money, but support and connection, exposing young children to stimulating play and storytelling, and enabling them to have wide-eyed experiences of this beautiful city.
The initiative is about a year old. Its patrons are the Rev Mpho Tutu and Imam Rashied Omar, and both faith-based and secular service organisations have been invited to become part of it. Initially, there was a great deal of apprehension. “What will we talk to each other about? I’m scared of driving into a part of Cape Town I don’t know. What if she asks me for money? And, won’t my involvement seem patronising?” Fortunately, several congregations took the lead, including Commonground Church in Constantia, the Claremont Main Road Mosque and the Rondebosch United Church. Their common experience is that there is plenty to talk about; it’s exciting to discover unfamiliar parts of Cape Town; people’s expectations can be managed through honest conversation; and both sides benefit from their unusual interactions. Once people are brought together and overcome their fear, connection comes naturally. That’s not to suggest that once we “click”, everything is hunky-dory! On the contrary, exposing ourselves to each other’s lives is often challenging, but there is no other way to shape a new society.
Cape Town Embrace is a pioneering strategy that gets to the heart of the South African problem, namely the lack of genuine relationships across class and race. It confronts the fact that socio-economic differences still determine the life-long outcomes of children born in the 21st year of democracy. It recognises that poverty is not just an absence of money, but a paucity of relationships that excludes people from full participation in society. At the same time, it recognises the wealth of enterprise and resilience of spirit that exists in money-scarce communities.
The fact that half our children still miss out on the most basic opportunities of life is our collective problem. As we seek to change society, it is easier to confront the immediate needs of service delivery – water, roads, health services and sanitation – than to tackle the hard “soft” aspects of social transformation. Yet it is the latter that will fundamentally shape the city’s future – its long-term social stability and economic prosperity. This city cannot contemplate a situation where 20 years from now it is still unable to harness the full potential of its citizens. Its poorer children cannot be the responsibility of government services and their parents alone. It requires each of us to connect with at least one child who would otherwise miss out.
l Harrison is the chief executive of the DG Murray Trust, which provides core funding to Cape Town Embrace. To get involved, visit www.embrace.org.za