My Name Is Grace - Trying To Stay In Touch With The World

Grace is a resident in the only old age home in Mdantsane carrying the name "Ethembeni".  Let's help each other!

Africa is considered as a continent that values its elders and ancestors. But does the reality correspond to this statement?

In South Africa many old people live in desperation and poverty, neglected and sometimes abused by their own families. Often the effects that crime, the colonial past and Apartheid had on the South African population are blamed for this. Their pension money or their state grant are misappropriated by their children and grand children and they are left with nothing. Others do not have children and nobody in the community they are living in wants to accept moral and financial responsibility for them.

Grace suffered a similar fate until she was brought to Ethembeni. Grace found a secure haven at the Ethembeni Old Age Home in Mdantsane, founded by Pelisa Welemu, a woman who has dedicated her whole life to the well-being of old people in the second biggest township of South Africa.

Grace is 71 years old, went to school and speaks English. After a stroke she is incapable to speak properly. But she is reaching out to people and tries to stay in touch with the world. While I was filming there she addressed me several times wanting to tell her story. But she can only speak a few sentences at a time.

There is sadness in these scenes but this short documentary is also a testimony to the world, that even if you are old you still have a place in this world and you might want to stay in touch with the world you have lived in for so long. These scenes are also a testimony of humour that has not been lost after great hardship.

European viewers might find these images depressing and the living conditions appalling. Several old people sharing a room and waiting for the end of their life in front of a television is not what they might be used to from European Old Age Homes. But I just remind you that a great contribution to society has been made by allowing the old people to still live respected, safe clean, and with a full stomach until the end of their life.