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Welcome to Two Sisters PDF Print E-mail

It is not enough just to feed these children to keep them alive. We want to give them a life, too.

Welcome to Two Sisters - the brainchild of Patrick and Conney Thibedi. The charity, based in north-east South Africa, supports orphans of the AIDS epidemic that is devastating much of the African continent. Two Sisters started almost by accident. Patrick, a political prisoner of the apartheid South African government, was released from Robben Island in 1992. He and Conney, his young wife, settled in Mganduzweni, a beautiful but poor town in the hills outside White River, South Africa. A neighbour in their village died, and her two daughters were orphaned. Patrick and Conney fostered the two sisters. That was in 1999. Today they have 76 children in their care.

The children arrive most days as the sun breaks over the hills that enclose their village. Up since before dawn, Patrick and Conney give them a hot breaksfast and send them off to school. Lunch time, the children are back at the house. They eat and the couple help with their homework.

Patrick and Conney have managed to place most of the children in homes in the village, but it is a tough task. Many of the children, HIV positive themselves, have been ostracised by the community. Patrick and Conney spend many hours educating community members about the disease, how to prevent it and how to live with it. The want the children to have what every child in the world should have as a basic birth right - a safe, happy childhood. They dream of offering the children a rounded up-bringing - sports, games and creative activities so that they can enjoy their childhoods and develop their potential as people.

When Patrick and Conney first became involved with HIV affected families they trained as home carers, offering emotional and material support to the destitute and dying. Conditions were so bad that for years they themselves lived in a house with nothing but a stove, a table, some blankets, pots and utensils. They gave their curtains to a dying neighbour who had no bedding. They supported their growing band of orphans and their own three children on Patrick's veterans pension, determined to offer all the children not just enough food to keep them alive, but to give them a life, too.

Catch a Fire
Through the making of the Working Title film Catch a Fire, Two Sisters fortunes have improved considerably. The story is based on Patrick's life, and the money he earned from the film had allowed him and Conney to invest in some furniture and a second hand truck. Working Title are providing him with enough soccer strips, shoes and soccer balls to equip several teams.  Patrick himself was a legendary soccer player in his youth and he dreams of seeing his children playing in the national squad.

The Future
There is still much work to be done. Patrick and Conney want to complete their chicken farm and create a vegetable garden so that the children need never be hungry again and will always have food to sell. They want to develop their home into a childrens centre where not just the orphans, but children from the village will be nourished culturally and creatively. They want to bring in skills training for people of the village and the older children who must learn to provide for themselves.

They dont have much time. The years Patrick spent as a political prisoner have taken a toll on his health. He wants to build what he can in the time that he has. He went to jail in the fight for freedom - that battle has been won. This, his final battle, is for the life of his people.