Amid Soaring Therapy Costs, Nigerians Turn to Religion
This week, we start in Uganda, where mothers are breaking the law to support their queer children. Next, we travel to Kenya, where the new disability law promises more rights and access for PWDs. Finally, we stop in Germany where a nursing home is creating a safe space for queer seniors.
At Melfort Old People’s Home in Zimbabwe, many elderly former migrant workers now live alone, with no family, property, or support. People like 106-year-old Brand Jamba spent their lives working in mines and farms but are now left behind, without pensions or a place to return to. In this story, we cover what life looks like for them today
Read an excerpt here👇🏽:
About 42 kilometres east of Harare, Zimbabwe’s capital, stands Melfort Old People’s Home, a retirement facility for elderly men and women with nowhere else to go. Most residents are men, many of them lifelong bachelors. The home also houses women, largely widows. Many of the residents have no surviving children or close relatives. A significant number came to Zimbabwe as migrant labourers, having spent their working years on farms, in mines, or in domestic service.
Established in 1979, the home was created specifically for destitute seniors. Among them is Brand Jamba, who was admitted to Melfort in 1999. At 106, Jamba calls it his “final resort.”
Born in Malawi, Jamba migrated to Zimbabwe with his parents during the colonial era. But before he turned ten, he lost contact with them under circumstances he still struggles to recall.
“I never established a family, [no] spouse or children in my life,” Jamba tells Minority Africa, adding that he never owned property in Zimbabwe either.
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For 29-year-old Tapiwa Chishaka, who was born deaf, his days follow the same routine. From sunrise to sunset, he walks from one bus to another on the highway, sharing laminated copies of a letter stating the bearer is deaf and therefore seeking any form of help.
He is often met with different reactions– from sympathetic to cold, and sometimes even harsh – by the bus crews and passengers. But at the end of the day, he gets something to take home.
In April 2020, Chishaka could no longer go out and could not understand why. The COVID-19 lockdown had begun, and in the ensuing panic and confusion, neither his mother nor community members could explain that the whole country had been put under a total lockdown to control the spread of the deadly virus.
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Grace Nyarangi* decided to enter the sex work industry when she was just over 18 years old. In her early years, she managed to support her children, put food on the table, and provide for all their necessities solely through her earnings.
Despite facing significant backlash and stigma from her family and community upon learning about her choice of profession, Nyarangi remained resolute.
“After giving birth and being abandoned by my partner, I struggled to secure employment with no success,” she shares. “That’s when I turned to this line of work.”
However, as she grew older, her income from sex work began to decline. Nyarangi, who today also works at the Africa Sex Workers Alliance (ASWA) based in Kisumu, says that in Kenya, older sex workers are confronting two formidable challenges: technology and ageism. Formed in 2009 in South Africa by members drawn from 35+ countries, the alliance works towards promoting destigmatisation and decriminalisation of sex work.
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True allyship means honoring the spaces marginalized communities carve out for themselves
When I was younger, I was full of anger. Years of being closeted left me suffocating in silence, terrified to be myself in a heteronormative world that essentially hated me. Or, at best, treated me like an abnormal, second-class citizen. There was a lot of simmering rage with nowhere to go.
When I finally came out and embraced myself as a lesbian, the last thing I wanted to do was acknowledge straight allies. “F**k them!” ran through my mind – and, honestly, probably out loud more than once.
In my defense, and in hindsight, it makes sense that I carried hostility toward the group that had always represented my oppression.