September news: Shamiela's story

Shamiela* is a young woman of 19, mother of 3 children aged 4 years, 2 years and 8 months. She lives with her parents and her sister and next door to her best friend, who also has a baby.

In a society where teenage pregnancies are commonplace and accepted, we find that more and more girls (and of course the men involved) are careless in their sexual practices. It is not a lack of knowledge or a lack of sex education, it is not even a lack of understanding of the consequences of falling pregnant. It is also not necessarily what a lot of people believe, which is that she has babies in order to benefit from the child support grant of R250 per child per month. We all know that this is not nearly enough to support a child. Most women we meet, no matter their age, are unmarried. According to our statistics, less than 25% of the women who attend our support groups are married. This implies that it is also only about 25% of mothers who are supported by the fathers of the children.

So why are incidences of teenage pregnancy so prevalent? Statistics show that a teenage girl who has a baby before her 20^th birthday will be pregnant again within two years. Sadly, even with our intervention and influence, we find this to be true as well. I think Shamiela’s story answers this question for us.

Shamiela’s* father drinks and uses drugs, her mother as well. They work on and off, there usually is not much money. Violence is an everyday thing, which is not extraordinary in this community. At 14 years old Shamiela meets a boy. They are in love as only 14 year olds can be - passionately, completely and overpoweringly. This boy loves Shamiela, she feels more than anyone has ever loved her before. This might even be true. Shamiela says it is her and him against the world, but inevitably they are also lured into the world of drugs, in particular the popular and deadly addictive ‘tik’. Within a few months Shamiela finds that she is pregnant. Her parents are angry, but as this is a commonplace occurrence, accept it. Shamiela dotes on her first baby, but feels her boyfriend is slipping away in the mundane and stressful early months of having a baby. After a year and finding out that her boyfriend has been cheating on her, Shamiela decides that the only way to hold onto this love, would be to have another child and so she does. During her second pregnancy the boy breaks up with her anyway and so she and her parents are stuck with 2 children to support and raise. Where does Shamiela find acceptance and esteem? In the arms of another man, of course. This time the man is older with a stable job and promises to support her and her children. These are empty promises, undoubtedly and soon Shamiela finds herself where she is now: single mother of three children under 5 years old and no means to support them, including having given up her schooling at the age of 16.

Shamiela’s story is not uncommon. She is one of many teenage mothers we come across. Our work starts at the clinics where we meet the mothers as they come for antenatal care or breastfeeding advice, but soon we become shoulders to cry on and arms to lean on, often just an ear to listen. You see, Shamiela has never really felt heard. In her despondency we are able to offer friendship, counselling and often practical advice. It is hard and often frustrating. It is by the grace of God and the determination that we start each day believing firmly that this day we will make a difference, we will touch someone, change her life for the better. This is why we do what we do. This is what it’s all about.

*Name has been changed.

August news

August is a big month for Bosom Buddies. Women’s month means the focus nationwide is on the health and well-being is on that of the woman, which is why it is in the week coming up to Women’s Day, we celebrate breastfeeding week.   

In South Africa our child mortality rates are alarmingly high and maternal mortality rates are rising.   A large percentage of these deaths are preventable. We believe that through education, support and constant guidance, we can make a real difference, which is why we offer breastfeeding education and support groups at our local clinics daily.

In the partnership between public healthcare and BB, we form a holistic care for our mothers. We offer more than antenatal and baby care; it is about life and lifestyle, finding the voice in the mother. I encourage our women to know their rights, to demand quality service and to ask questions.
Our ultimate aim is to significantly reduce stillbirths and infant deaths and to elevate maternal well-being in our area.

Our focus this past breastfeeding week was on two of our new clinics, Kleinvlei and Grabouw Day Hospital. We have had a presence in these two facilities since May and during breastfeeding week we decided to spoil our moms with special treats and gifts. In spite of chilly winds in Grabouw, loads of women attended. It is a tremendous privilege and often very rewarding to meet and educate these mothers. Zoleka put it perfectly when she said that that’s how we roll – every woman leaves rich in knowledge, with a smile on her face!

This Women’s Day I would like to remind our readers again of the women we at Thembalitsha meet on a daily basis:

·         The HIV positive mother whose biggest fear is transmitting the disease to her child.

·         The 15-year-old mother who is still a child herself.

·         The young woman in love who thinks he might love her back if she does not insist on using a condom.

·         The Choices mother who feels she has no choice but to give this baby to someone else.

·         The mother who goes to hospital with such joyous anticipation but goes home with empty arms because her baby was born sleeping.

·         The mother who is having her 6^th child because nobody has ever spoken to her about sterilisation or birth control.

·         The abused woman who fears her own home and what might happen every night.

·         The privileged mother who has 3 of her own children, but still feels that she has the capacity, strength and love to foster or adopt another.

·         Even the woman who lives on the street and who has given up trying to quit a long time ago and gives birth to a baby with foetal alcohol syndrome.

·         And also to the desperate, the depressed, the isolated mother who feels she has no other choice but to abandon her baby.

Mamas having tea in the postnatal room, Grabouw Day Hospital.

July News

“Our human compassion binds us the one to the other – not in pity or patronisingly, but as human beings who have learnt how to turn our common suffering into hope for the future.” Nelson Mandela

Upon celebrating Mandela day on 18 July, I was yet again encouraged and thrilled to see the whole country united in charitable generosity and kindness. Obviously as an NGO we are overrun by requests for people wanting to join us in doing something. Of course we love showing guests around, for me that is one of the favourite perks of my job. I enjoy taking guests with me to the hospital, showing them around the maternity ward and allowing them to meet the new moms, give them a Bosom Buddies bag and they might even get the opportunity to dress or cuddle a newborn. It is, as with most things, a double-edged sword, though. The mothers having just given birth are in the euphoric, high-adrenalin and endorphin hormonal stage and need quiet time to bond with their babies and initiate breastfeeding. They don’t feel pretty, they are (often) in pain, perhaps even overwhelmed. I know that most of them are thrilled to have a guest, someone who congratulates them with the birth of their baby, but I feel loathe to have them pose for pictures, for them to feel in any way patronized or being ogled at by outsiders. I am therefore always aware that we need to be sensitive and look for what we have in common, rather than what makes us different, divides us.

Another event that is upon us is Women’s day, celebrated on 9 August. Always at this time, I contemplate what it means to be a woman in SA today. I wonder why we don’t have more strong African female leaders.

Girls and young women aren't encouraged to follow politics as a career. Traditional roles will take a long time to break down. In SA, too many young women fall pregnant out of wedlock. What happens mostly is that they give up school or their studies and fall in the cycle of poverty-stricken, undereducated mothers. Daughters are stuck in this cycle and follow by example. We have many strong women in our government and modern political parties with female leaders, but whether they will get the traditional African male vote remains to be seen. I doubt it, the average African woman is not even 'allowed' to wear jeans or trousers, and I doubt they will get the respect and dignity they deserve very soon.

On 9 August 1956, 20 000 women converged on the Union Buildings in opposition to the Group Areas Act and the pass laws that was extended to women. It was during that march that the protest song Wathint’ abafazi wathint’imbokodo (You Strike a Woman/You Strike a Rock) was first popularised. While we enjoy paper rights and can, if we have the means, access the law to force equality, on this August 9, 2013, we should not celebrate. If the women we meet on a daily basis are anything to go by, we as women in SA are mostly afraid and disempowered.

June News

Anyone for.....Golf?!

May News

Some of the MFM team - finished!!!

Miles for Moms 2013 was yet another colossal challenge, with 11 of us taking on the Jonkershoek Mountain Challenge on 5 May. I am happy to say that we all survived and did extremely well. We have an amazingly fit and fearless team of runners of who I am very proud. Anthony, James and Charles undertook the extreme 35km distance. Brave men, all three of them! Emily, Willemien, André-Hugo, Jan, Ben and myself braved the 21km (very, very far for a trailrun) and speedsters Monique and Hanel sprinted the 10km.

Why did we do this? We are running to raise awareness for our project, the plights of mothers in our area and to raise some funds. Thank you for your help in spreading our message – that every new life is a celebration, that all mothers need support and compassion, that we are eliminating infant mortality and morbidity in our area through empowerment and education of mothers.

On Sunday 12 May we celebrated Mother’s day. It is on these days that I would like to encourage our supporters to particularly keep disadvantaged mothers in mind and in prayer. Too many of the women we meet are never celebrated, never acknowledged for their roles and tireless work in raising their children, often alone with little or no support from husbands or partners.

In South Africa, it is with more than poverty we struggle with. We are continuously battling legacies from a past that we can’t seem to shake off. Our constitution is of the best in the world, yet our legal and judicial system is sluggish and practically often works against women. Marriage seems to be a custom that is out-dated and not practiced too often, even in relatively conservative cultures in South Africa. Mothers are getting younger, with teenage pregnancies on the increase in the Western Cape, while infant and maternal deaths are on the rise. The gap between rich and poor seems to be on the rise – and at the bottom of the barrel is the woman, and consequently her children. She is poverty-stricken, exhausted and often so intent on survival that she forgets to look beyond her day-to-day existence to the future of her children. I see too many children who don’t attend school, even if schooling might be readily available and affordable. When asked why, the answer is often that the child does not want to go to school. With a mother too tired of fighting for basic rights such as sanitation and water, maintenance payments by an absent father, and a violent society, she does not feel up to the struggle of forcing the child to go to school.

Bosom Buddies is a feminist organisation. We aim to define and determine social justice for women, in particular for mothers. We educate, empower and encourage mothers. We are activists for the rights of mothers. We meet pregnant and breastfeeding mothers and communicate, listen and teach. We dream of one day shrugging off the remnants of inequality and disparity when it comes to daily living, access and traditional roles.

April News

Education, Education, Education!

We are so proud of our expansion into the education field of preventative healthcare. This is what we are passionate about and in our purpose to actively and positively impact infant mortality and morbidity rates we are working without ceasing.

We are pleased to now officially partner with the City of Cape Town as well as the Department of Health in the campaign of breastfeeding education and support. As of this month, we are happy to announce the employment of another amazing and experienced breastfeeding counsellor, Liezl Bantham. For the past 8 years she has worked as a peer counsellor at the Macassar Day Hospital and she will now be a part of the Bosom Buddies team, educating at clinics in Eersteriver, Grabouw, Strand and Gordons Bay. For our next newsletter, we promise an introductory interview with Liezl.

I had the privilege to be invited to lecture at the Khayelitsha District Hospital’s quarterly 20-hour training in breastfeeding management. The training of nursing staff and peer counsellors falls under our mission and it is in recognition of the work we are doing and the expertise and respect we have garnered in our field that we are invited to participate in the training of staff.

My colleague from the Village of Hope, Tim, introduced me to a woman who looks after 10 children, all under 2 years old, in her shack in Grabouw’s Iraq settlement. Visiting her home was another sobering reminder of the need in our urban townships. All these children are cared for without easy access to running water or electricity. The shack is bare of any furnishings and the children had no toys or any other form of stimulation. I realise of course that our preoccupation with breastfeeding and education has limits, especially for those mothers who have to go to work and need to leave their babies in the care of a woman without a fridge or means for heating expressed breast milk. It is equally as difficult for her to properly sterilise and mix formula bottles. It is near impossible for the mother to express and keep breast milk without a fridge, especially during the summer months. This dilemma disconcerts and disturbs me, since no obvious solution can be found. This is just another reminder of how desperation forces our mothers to make very difficult decisions.

Please support our Miles for Moms team. We are running up a mountain for our cause on 5 May! Next month we will have results and pictures.

ALSO! - If you've not checked out our new film 'Ovayo's Story of Hope' please do and let us know what you think!

March News

There has been a lot of debate on our social platforms surrounding breastfeeding vs bottle feeding. One might wonder why we would invest so much in educating mothers on this issue. People are often surprised when I mention the topic. Or activists for breastfeeding are branded as ‘hippies and Nazis’. Yes, I have been called both. Let me explain my views as endorsed by our own Department of Health, by the World Health Organisation and UNICEF.

A middle class mother in urban areas in Europe has the benefits of antenatal education, of clean running water, of sterilising equipment, enough money to buy formula milk, help and resources nearby. She would be (one would hope) properly educated around the benefits of breastfeeding, on how to deal with difficulties and she would be literate in order to read and understand mixing instructions on the formula tin.

It is true that some women are unable to breastfeed for some specific medical reason; it
is also true that women don’t have the support to be successful at breastfeeding. Often problems with lack of supply are mentioned. Lack of supply can be directly linked to lack of information Bottles and pacifiers (of any kind) detrimentally affect breast milk supply.

In a new report by Save the Children, it is estimated that 830,000 babies could be saved every year if they were breastfed in the first hour of life. The colostrum, or first milk, provides potent antibodies that protects against disease. Breastfeeding in that golden hour after the baby’s birth typically leads to exclusive breastfeeding for the first 6 months.

So why isn't this happening? Save the Children identifies four major barriers to breastfeeding:

1) Community and cultural pressures
2) The health worker shortage
3) Lack of maternity legislation
4) Inappropriate marketing of breast-milk substitutes

In the developing world (this includes South Africa); the price paid is particularly high. A baby dies every 30 seconds for lack of protection breastfeeding provides against malnutrition and deadly disease.

What does all this have to do with Bosom Buddies? Our work is done in urban Cape Town, but we are definitely not exempt from these statistics and struggles. Anywhere in South Africa, our townships are places of poverty, struggle and hardship, particularly for the women and mothers. I always emphasise to the mothers in our support groups that the most significant hurt you can hurt a mother, is the pain of losing a child. In spite of access to medical care, all 4 of the above barriers still affect our mothers. Bosom Buddies is employing another breastfeeding expert from April, to help us to reach more women and to positively impact the infant mortality and morbidity rates in our area.