granny profile

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Profile The following is a Profile of three old ladies who reside at Alexandra Township.

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Page 1: granny profile

Profile The following is a Profile of three old

ladies who reside at Alexandra Township.

Page 2: granny profile

We met three elderly women in the township

of Alexandra, commonly known as ‘Alex’. Alex is

located just next to Sandton. It consists mainly

of shacks and have very small streets. It is said

that Alexandra is one of the poorest communi-

ties in Johannesburg. With very high percent-

ages of unemployment and children who drop

out of school. Most of the kids drop out of

school from the age of 9 years and high rates of

pregnancies. This community has elderly wom-

en like any other community. These elderly

women are mostly the ones that take care of

their grandchildren because you will find that

these children’s parents are working or in most

cases their parents have passed on and now

the grannies have to take care of them. Most of

them depend on their pension fund and col-

lecting recycling material, such as boxes and

bottles.

The following is the story of the three ladies.

The first granny we met was Mrs Nomakula

Joyce Masupa. Mrs Masupa is about 75 years of

age and she has 3 grandchildren, whom two of

them are still at school (one is in grade 10 and

the other one is in matric).

Page 3: granny profile

). The eldest of the three is working. They are all

males and they stay in a separate shack just

next to hers, for privacy reasons. She does not

have any grand-daughters. Her grandsons are

the only people that assist her with anything

she needs. If it happens that at night she needs

something or if she is sick, she blows a whistle

to her grandsons to come and assist.

Moreover, Mrs Masupa is a pensioner but she

also has sells cigarettes, sweets and snacks as

way of generating money to help her grandchil-

dren go to school. She is passionate about edu-

cation and she also mentioned that her wish is

that her grandchildren finish school so that they

can provide for themselves as she is now very

old. As mentioned above that she sometimes

gets sick, Mrs Masupa has arthritis and she reg-

ularly goes to the nearest clinic for her medica-

tion.

The second grandmother is Mrs Nomusa

Mdlalose. She is 78 years old and she stays with

her unemployed son and five grandchildren

Page 4: granny profile

. Out of those five grandchildren, three are going

to school. The son is not working and he is the

one that takes care of the granny as the eldest

grand-daughter is hardly home.

Mrs Mdlalose stays in a very small shack that

her son built for her. It is upstairs as there was

no space to put the shack on the ground level.

Moreover there is no running water and no toi-

let. They use the stairs to fetch water and access

the outside toilet. The stairs that they are using

are slippery and the support structure is not

strong at all. The shack is so small that things

have be moved to space for everyone.

As mentioned above that Mrs Mdlalose’s son

built the shack, he managed to separate the

shack into two rooms for his and the granny to-

gether with the grandchildren. They cook out-

side because there isn’t much space in the

house. The house need renovation because the

material used is up to standard as most of the

things used to build the house are man-made.

Mrs Mdlalose has diabetics and she regularly

goes to the nearest clinic for medication

Page 5: granny profile

.She is the breadwinner because her eldest son

is unemployed and the two eldest grandchildren

are school drop outs. It is also said that Mrs

Mdlalose regularly goes to find food in the dust-

bins for her family.

The third grandmother is between the ages of

65 to 70. She stays with her two grand-

daughters, one of them has two children. She is

the only breadwinner and they stay in a shack of

which they are renting. She pays R600, 00 per

month. Moreover the granny collects boxes on

the streets and takes them to a recycling cite.

Page 6: granny profile

These are some of the pictures we took from Mrs Masupa’s house. As you can see, the

door is made up zinc at the bottom and its not so safe because the ends have sharp end.

Page 7: granny profile

Next are the pictures we took from Mrs Mdlalose’s house. The first picture is from the roof top and the

second picture is where the family cooks. They prepare their food outside because there isn't much space

in their house.

Page 8: granny profile

The above pictures are from the last granny Ntombi met. She lives in a very tight shack.