It's About Ubuntu

Cwengi’s support group helps to lighten the burden of gogos who find themselves raising their grandchildren.

- Khatija Nxedlana

SHE’S at an age when no one would blame her for sitting in the sun all day long, sipping tea and knitting jerseys for her grandchildren. After all, she has a long and successful career as a nurse behind her, so she deserves to enjoy a peaceful retirement, right?

Well, yes – but slowing down is not part of Cwengekile Myeni’s vocabulary.

The 74-year-old grandmother of five is not only filling her twilight years with meaning and activity, she’s motivating others to do the same – and changing their lives in the process.

Cwengi, as she’s affectionately known, is the founder of the Gogo Support Group programme, an initiative that provides support to grandparents who have been handed the huge task of raising their grandchildren, usually with little or no income.

These grannies may have become the sole guardians of their grandkids after their parents passed away, often as a result of HIV/Aids.

After raising their own families, these grandmothers have to start all over again. And they often feel at a loss about how to cope.

Enter Cwengi and her support group, something she started just over 10 years ago under the banner of the Hillcrest Aids Centre Trust.

The project is not about handouts, she tells us, but about equipping the grannies to be the very best versions of themselves, no matter how old they are.

“When I started the gogo project, people would ask, ‘So what are you giving us?’ I wanted to change that,” she says. “I wanted people to do things for themselves. Some women feel there’s nothing they can do because of their age. But I tell them, ‘Well I’m here. I’m still working, I’m still moving around.’ They need to see someone else who can do it, to see there’s still a lot they can do.”