Author: Sue Maclennan

Young woman’s family wants justice “Denise was good. She was funny. She didn’t like wrong things. She made people happy all the time. “She liked to dance so much – especially pantsula. Actually we both used to do pantsula dancing – not to perform, just to be happy.” Denise Nogqala’s brother Luthando was a toddler when he came from a farm about 30km north-west of Grahamstown to live with their aunt in Vukani. He’s now 31 and he was a teenager when his little sister became part of the household at age 10. On the farm she was Noluthando Buys…

Queen P Entertainment and Events put on a great show for their annual Ladies’ Spring Picnic at Fiddlers Green on Saturday. Sue Maclennan took the photos.

Hundreds of children brought traffic to a standstill outside Port Alfred last Sunday as they marched a good kilometre or more from the community hall in Alfred Road to the Port Alfred High School fields, where they were an impressive sight as they performed various drill during a spectacular parade. The children were members of the Seventh Day Adventist church’s Adventurer Club, in Port Alfred for the church’s Cape Conference. Aged from 3 to 9, they came from King William’s Town, Butterworth, East London, Idutywa, Peddie and Queenstown. Photo: Sue Maclennan WATCH THE VIDEO HERE: bit.ly/Groc7th

Some of Grahamstown’s most vulnerable people lived for a week with their homes surrounded by raw sewage, at risk of life threatening diseases, as council officials struggled to get teams on site. In Ncame Street social workers caring for children as young as two at the Ikhaya Losizo Cluster Foster Homes, and elderly people living near the intersection of Sani Street, told Grocott’s Mail of days of despair and frustration as they waited for relief from the stench and danger of raw faeces that spilled continuously from sewage mains and flooded their gardens. Diseases transmitted by human faces include cholera…

South Africa’s levels of violence against children are among the highest in the world! During National Child Protection Week in June 2017, the Department of Social Development reminded us that one in three children in our country are victims of child abuse. Despite public outcry against child abuse and various campaigns, our high caseloads continue to tell the story that somehow, the circumstances that exist in our society makes it possible for people to continue abusing children. Child abuse is fast becoming the greatest crime of opportunity. Anita Marshall for RAPCAN attributes this opportunity to several factors, including,  the child’s…

June saw Child Welfare SA Grahamstown hosting its centenary celebration at our Enrichment Centre up in Joza. It was a wonderful day attended by many members of our local community who were able to delight in the fantastic performances presented by our children from the Nompumelelo Pre-School.  Part of our work at Child Welfare is to introduce safety information and prevention techniques against different forms of abuse to our children in the pre-school and Ikhaya Losizo Cluster Homes. We hope to spread this reach to be inclusive of all children in Grahamstown. Our high caseloads, however, continue to tell the…

Our Reporting Obligations Our research shows that child abuse and neglect is largely underreported in the Eastern Cape. There are a host of reasons for this, but among the factors contributing to low levels of reporting are young children’s lack of capacity and their ability to report abuse to the appropriate authorities, fear of being harmed or causing harm to people close to them, and the social acceptance of certain practices such as corporal punishment and sexual harassment. Given that child protection is each and everyone of our responsibility, it is imperative that the Grahamstown community members both individually and…

Basil Mills (left) and chairperson of the Garden Route Motor Club Peter Pretorius chat to Grahamstown Classic car connoisseur Norbert Drager (his 1964 Porsche 3653 is behind them) during the CapeMog club’s stopover in Grahamstown last Friday. Around 15 Morgans rolled into town last Friday, turning heads and pulling in motorheads, classic aficionados and vintage-style fans alike. The club members were hosted by Basil Mills, who regaled them with Frontier history and took them on a tour of NELM. Photo: Sue Maclennan

The Keep Grahamstown Grahamstown (KGG) campaign says correspondence last week from the Eastern Cape Provincial Geographic Names Committee about objections to a name change for the town submitted midway through 2016 is outdated, and that it is only a preliminary step in the legislative process to change the town’s name. In an undated document on the letterhead of the Eastern Cape Department of Sport, Recreation, Arts and Culture titled ‘Responses to public objections – public hearings held on 11 February 2016 in Grahamstown’, the Committee notes that collectively the objections are “mainly based on historical, llegislative compliance, socio-economic, business and…

Dealer Manager Zubayr Danka (left) poses with staff at the Total Grahamstown and the award the team won in the organisation’s national Elite CLub Awards for 2017. The forecourt incentive award comes with a trophy, a certificate and a R100 000 cheque which will be shared amon the 28 staff, Danka says. ‘I want to thank all our loyal customers in Grahamstown.’ He says excellent service on the forecourt and an excellent product were behind the award. Photo: Sue Maclennan