Private sector joins hands to fix Nelson Mandela Bay’s ‘horror hostel’

On Tuesday morning, for the first time in years, learners boarding at the Gelvandale High School hostel in Nelson Mandela Bay took a warm shower. 

When matron Toinette Abrahams got up at 4.30am on Tuesday, she heard the children in the hostel singing. There are 52 boys and 60 girls living there.

Most days, they call their parents and beg to be taken elsewhere.

“Parents come to fetch their children on a daily basis because the children can’t cope,” Abrahams said. But on Tuesday morning, as dawn broke on Mandela Day 2023, the children were celebrating.

“When I got there, they were singing and dancing. It was awesome just to see them not struggle for some water,” she said.

The hostel is in an area riddled with gangs and deemed so dangerous that police were deployed to guard the perimeter while a Mandela Day event was under way.

“Load shedding is the worst nightmare for us. Inside and outside, it is pitch dark. They must go into their rooms because they can’t go outside,” she said.

Abrahams has been working at the hostel for 27 years, 12 of those as the acting matron.

“To me, this project is the light at the end of the tunnel,”  she said.

“The Community Chest came to us like angels. Since the first day that they came, there has really been a change.”

The hostel’s bathrooms, however, remain in a horrendous state. The urinals do not work. The baths have no working plumbing and the sinks are blocked. There are exposed electrical connections everywhere and no lights in the children’s rooms.

The wind blows through bullet holes left in the hostel’s windows after a gang fight. Half the hostel buildings had to be locked up as gangs were using it as a hideout and assaulting children there.

“I wouldn’t allow a street child to live the way my children have to live,” Abrahams said.

“It is not appropriate for children. It is heartbreaking to see children trying to find water to wash in the mornings. They also don’t have anything to keep themselves warm. They can’t study in their rooms because there are no chairs. There is only a bed for them to sleep on and the mattresses are finished. The windows are broken. The roof is full of holes. Rain comes in.”

Abrahams said she was sceptical when first approached about the renovation project because others had offered to help in the past, but pulled out when they saw the state of the hostel.

“Many people came to see the hostel and never returned. But with Nelson Mandela University, it was different. They first said we must share our vision for the hostel. They never promised us anything. They asked us how we feel about our future. They gave us hope and a way forward. Only two days after they came, there was action.”

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The university, Community Chest and the Nelson Mandela Foundation have joined forces to fix the hostel. Some businesses were also there to support the Mandela Day event by helping to clean up the hostel grounds and provide lunch.

The Community Chest, a nonprofit organisation, is supporting the establishment of a food garden and is training volunteers to care for it.

The school was hit with a R2-million water bill after pipes were stolen and buildings flooded. There are no cleaners.

“I can’t even ask the children to clean because they have to live in such terrible conditions,” Abrahams said.

But it was here, among the weeds, uncut grass and dirty rooms, that the Community Chest, Nelson Mandela University, the Nelson Mandela Foundation and several local businesses sat down with the children and said: “Tell us how you want this hostel to look.” 

“They told us their vision,” Community Chest project manager Sandy Geswint Abdoll said.

“We will make it a reality.”

She said it was important to her that the children had warm water after returning from the holidays. 

Geswint Abdoll said the first phase of the project had almost been completed and the second phase – involving work on the buildings – would begin soon.

Vukani Nzobe from the Nelson Mandela Foundation said the world needed more hope. “For me, hope means working together,” he said.

Dr Jeff Govender, an activist and medical doctor from FamHealth who has worked in the area for decades and is also a sponsor of the project, said everyone was lamenting the dysfunctionality in South Africa.

“This country can be world-class,” he said, “But something is wrong.”

He said he believed good leadership to be the solution.

“My challenge to the university is to go deeper and wider and empower communities to take ownership.”

He said the community should treat the project with gratitude. 

“Look after it, grow it and make it better.” DM