an Apartheid story........or is it ?

The advantage of the group home system is that the facility, and so the children are living a residential life in an ordinary street, with ordinary neighbours in an ordinary community.

Then again, child and youth care workers in group homes have to work not only with a group of children, but with ordinary streets, ordinary neighbours and ordinary communities. The formula allows for learning opportunities for everyone. It comes with its own set of challenges, especially in South Africa when the group home is  predominantly mixed race and diverse, and the neighbourhood isn't.

It was like that in the group home in Johannesburg. All the usual apartheid stereotypes were reversed there. What the neighbourhood expected as 'normal" or "ordinary" simply didn't apply. Children and staff were mixed, young/old, white/black, boys/girls, male workers/female workers, all mixed and all in the child and youth care melting pot.

The neighbourhood 'cookie cutter" mind says,  men look after boys, women can look after girls and boys but after a certain age, boys must definitely be cared for by men. White men can work with white boys or black boys, whilst black men don't provide child care services to girls, black or white....... That was the cookie cutter mindset ....and worse... that shaped the neighbourhood.

But this group home was a melting pot. It meant that Maleka, a black male child and youth care worker had full responsibility for the diverse group during his shift..

In the group was Rianna, a 14 year old white girl . Rianna was somewhat unpredictable, lively, bright, argumentative and not a little defiant.

Time has buried the actual situation that led to this, but it was early evening, still very light outside, when she got it into her head to run. So there she went - out of the house, into the street, past the neighbours, into the community. Maleka gave chase - - simple, he would catch up to her before she got too far and reason her back into the house.

A burly white man stood at his neighbourhood gate, smoking, and watched them coming. Then his cookie cutter mind clicked into its' cookie cutter shape. He watched as Rianna ran past him. Then as Maleka was three paces before the gate he quickly stepped out, very roughly grabbed Maleka and said, "I'm going to call the police. What did you do to that girl. You up to no good . You'll go to jail chasing a white girl like that . You'll go to jail ....you'll see."

The police were called.

No amount of explanation helped

Rianna disappeared into the streets.