On February 16^th 2012, The Cape Town Refugee Center hosted the first meeting for parents of children with disabilities. The focus group, facilitated by the social counselor Fwamba Mukole, serves as a way to disseminate the information to the parents. It began with a reminder to the group that this focus group is theirs to mold. Following on that note, Fwamba opened the session with questions in relation to what can be improved in regards to last year’s group and to new ideas they may have for the year to come.

From the answers, it is clear that the parents are aware that they cannot strictly rely on the grants from CTRC. They know its limits and they are determined to finds ways to gain their independence. Ideas to achieve self-reliance went along the lines of them forming a business as a small group.  By combining their skills and resources, they would balance out the work and the surveillance of their kids. This would be done by having a member of the group watch the children while the others worked to sell products. A second idea pertained to the want of the group to hear from experts in the psychology and therapy fields. The meetings to come will reflect these new inputs. The bulk of the meeting focused on a detailed explanation of changes in the grant offered by CTRC due to the government’s new grant to those parents with refugee status.  

In the last section, where parents were asked to explain the challenges with obtaining the new SASSA grant, it became clear that the main issue is in relation to documentation between Home Affairs, the government and SASSA..  

Cleo Edgingon