Tragedy of Aids in South Africa

She says the sentence quickly and quietly: “Aids is here and it's killing people”.

For community volunteers working in South Africa, however, the concern is not just how to prevent the spread of the virus but also how to protect the orphaned children often left behind.

To mark World Aids Day today, TARA GREAVES travelled with Christian Aid to see the pioneering work of one of its partner agencies helping families stay together.

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Her white dresser is filled with the things you might expect a grandmother to have.

Neatly arranged on the shelves are an assortment of flowered china tea cups, a novelty tankard and a selection of delicate figurines.

But scattered among the treasured nick-nacks, glaring at anyone who dares to enter the small, tidy living room, is a motley collection of toy dinosaurs - a clue, if one were needed, that Thoko Mdlalose is perhaps not your average granny.

Thoko Mdslalose at the entrance to her new home

It is testament to the human spirit that the 55-year-old is still able to bubble with laughter - filling the two-bedroom home she now shares with her grandchildren in the KwaZulu-Natal area of South Africa with an almost musical sound.

In 2004, her son Mandla passed away, aged just 34, followed a few short, painful, months later by her daughter-in-law - both from Aids- related illnesses - leaving their two young children, Mosley, now 15, and Siphumelele, nine, orphaned.

Despite being in poor health, and, at that time living in a mud and wood hut gradually being eaten away by termites, there was never any doubt that the children would stay with Thoko.

But on her own, unable to work and with no other means of income, life was tough for Thoko and her family who live in one of the country's many informal settlements which spread across the rolling green hills like a colourful spider's web.

And it was to get even harder with the discovery that Siphumelele was also HIV positive, apparently due to transmission from his mother.

In those dark days, when it was hard to grieve for the dead when there was such concern for the living, Thoko desperately needed help.

It came, in the end, from within her own community.

A volunteer working with the Thandanani Children's Foundation got in touch - a life-changing event for the family.

Speaking through a translator, Thoko explained: “They heard when my son passed away and then when the children's mother died and they knew I couldn't work so they became involved.”

Founded in 1989, Thandanani, which means love one another in Zulu, is a non-profit organisation, partly funded by Christian Aid, to care and support orphans and other vulnerable children in the area.

It is based in Pietermaritzburg, a sprawling city famous for being the place where Mahatma Gandhi was ordered off a train in 1893 after a white man objected to his presence in a first-class carriage despite his having a ticket.

Shivering through the winter's night in the waiting room of the station, Gandhi made the momentous decision to stay in South Africa and fight the racial discrimination against Indians.

However, to the newly-arrived visitor, it still feels like a city divided. Just a few minutes drive from a shiny new mall, filled with designer shops and expensive restaurants, the informal settlements, many without running water and electricity, begin.

From a distance, the lush landscape would not look out of place in Surrey or Sussex, but as we drive closer to the settlements of so-called homes, scraped together from mud, ash brick or wood and corrugated iron, it is hard to imagine people being able to survive so far below the poverty line.

And added to the everyday trauma of finding food and clean water is the scourge of HIV/Aids which is decimating communities and robbing children of their parents.

Latest figures show the nine countries in southern Africa continue to bear a disproportionate share of the global Aids burden - accounting for 35pc of HIV infections and 38pc of Aids deaths in 2007.

But it would be so much worse if the likes of Thandanani did not exist - in fact, Thoko is unsure what would have become of her and the children.

“They have helped us a great deal. Even before we got food stamps they helped us with the school fee exemptions and supplied us with blankets, school uniforms and shoes,” she said.

But the organisation - which currently has 140 well-placed volunteers, who receive a small stipend, and supports more than 2,050 children from 751 households, 90pc of which have lost parents to HIV - was able to do much more than that.

The charity linked up with Habitat for Humanity and the family were provided with a new, stable house - which meant for the first time Thoko, who shares a bedroom with Siphumelele, had running water and a good sanitation system.

Thoko was also given help to access foster care grants, which equate to about £82 a month, but with help from one of Thandanani's food security development facilitators they were able to plant a vegetable garden, which not only means the children are fed, but also supplements their limited income.

“The new house has been a blessing to me. It has changed my life and the children's lives a great deal. For the first time in my life I have a house with running water and a good sanitation system,” said Thoko, who works in the vegetable garden with Mosley when she returns from school.

Without food, people living with HIV, like Siphumelele, do not get the maximum benefit from the drugs they take. It is a vicious circle, as when people get better they get hungry.

Poverty is a major impediment to ensuring access to food, but with help to plant the vegetable garden, Thoko is able to provide spinach, beetroot, cauliflower, broccoli and peas for the children along with the very occasional piece of meat.

Nevertheless, life remains a struggle for this courageous grandmother, who has a serious heart condition, is diabetic and has asthma.

“It is very hard for me, especially at my age. I have to give them love as a mother, father and a grandmother,” she said, as her laughter turns to tears.

“Sometimes I can't afford to give them all the things they need and I feel if their parents were still alive they would be able to provide for them.

“It breaks my heart to think that I cannot provide all the needs for these children, like proper food and clothes.”

But as we watch Siphumelele run around outside with his younger cousin and his friends from school, a cheeky smile constantly on his happy face, we tell Thoko she should be proud of how she has brought up the children, particularly in making sure the little boy stays well.

The issue of HIV/Aids is a difficult one to cope with in a community where the stigma which still surrounds the illness makes it hard to confide in many people.

“Even when his mother was alive, Siphumelele was very sick but we were told it was TB. When his mother passed away we knew it was the disease,” she said.

“He gets antiretrovirals and he is much better health wise. He has also grown because in the beginning he was very small.

“The other kids do not know he is HIV but they know he has to take some serious medication. Only Mosley knows the truth.

“With my son, people knew because he was very sick but his wife died very quickly so while they suspected, nothing was known for sure and the same with Siphumelele.”

While there are many practical things Thandanani can help with, the charity is also concerned with the emotional welfare of the children it helps.

Both Mosley and Siphumelele, who Thoko says look so much like their parents, have attended therapeutic and recreational weekend camps where they are helped through the grieving process and taught to be children again and leave behind adult worries.

Thoko said: “They come back so happy, and usually with goodies such as shoes or a toy. They are happy about the food they get to eat and they sleep in very nice beds.”

Without Thandanani, thousands of vulnerable children would be living under the radar, at risk of exploitation, malnutrition and failing into a life of crime or worse.

And without funding from the likes of Christian Aid, which has launched its Christmas campaign aimed at keeping more families together, Thandanani could not operate - and who knows where Thoko and the children would be today if that were the case.

Next Monday, in the second of three reports from South Africa, Tara Greaves meets a brave teenager who took on the responsibility for her two younger siblings when she was just 16 after both her parents died; and she finds out how Thandanani has helped them stay together by also getting involved in early learning centres.