On March 2, birth certificates were issued directly at the mother and child clinic in Elandsdoorn for the first time!
After many years of unwavering efforts, this is now a significant success. What seems obvious to us is real progress for the people in the remote areas of South Africa. It is an invaluable advantage to have these important documents directly in their hands, because often young mothers not only have no transportation, but also do not have the necessary means to get to the relevant registration office and take the appropriate steps.
With the establishment of the mother and child clinic in 1999, the care of newborns has improved considerably. Over the years, the Ndlovu Care Group has succeeded in reducing the infant mortality rate to 0. Nevertheless, it was still the responsibility of the mothers to make the often long and arduous journey to the nearest registration center. In the poor areas, with a newborn and perhaps even smaller siblings, it was not an unusual decision not to have the baby officially registered.
The consequences are often unforeseeable for the mothers. They became clear to Hugo Tempelman’s team when the Orphans & Vulnerable Children Program (OVC) was founded in 2006. This program looks after orphans and vulnerable children whose parents have contracted or died from AIDS. The biggest problem for the helpers was to collect data for the registration of the orphans without birth certificates. Without official data, the children are denied access to the necessary state support and assistance.
This is now changing when it is in the care of the hospital to be able to issue the papers for every newborn. Thanks to the cooperation with the South African Department of Home Affairs, hospital staff are now authorized to issue birth certificates on a regular basis. This is an indispensable advantage for the future lives of these children – whether with or without parents, which is sadly often the case in South Africa.
