Meet Likhanyile

Her mom gave her the name “Likhanyile”, meaning “Light has Shone” in Xhosa.

Little did her mom know that Likhanyile’s light would need to shine extra brightly at a younger age than anticipated: just four months old.

That’s the age when babies start to roll. Start… So, when Andisiwe settled her sleeping baby on the couch in her little house and stepped outside for just a moment, the last thing she expected was for Likhanyile to roll off the couch and right on top of the two-burner stove. “I can’t describe it. I was crying so much. I was thinking that I’m going to lose my baby.” That is every mother’s worst nightmare, losing such a small child. Losing any child.

South Africa has its fair share of problems: high unemployment rate, crime, a severe lack of housing, schools, clinics, and even basic services such as running water and electricity. Many people live a hard daily life, enduring poor conditions in cities’ informal settlements. The elements haven’t been kind this winter either. But there’s another side to this hard life that people don’t always recognise when looking at things from a bird’s eye perspective, and that is the sense of community within these, well, communities.

When reading tragic stories about children in burning accidents or any type of accident, you will often read how the community jumped into action to help without any hesitation. And that’s exactly what they did when they heard Andisiwe’s cries for help. “The community members helped me take her out. Then we rushed to the day clinic. From there they transferred us to Red Cross.”

The sense of community is as inherent in South Africans as is the smell of the first raindrops touching the dry Karoo grass, or the ear-piercing sound of the hadeda’s call at dawn, or the taste of freshly caught snoek braaied on an open wood fire, or the sight of the silhouette of the mighty Baobab tree against a dusty sunset. And it is greater than just the physical. Community is a feeling. It is the “unity” in community that makes South Africa and her people unique.

The Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital is the Baobab tree of hospitals. It is not only the root but also the branch of many communities. And The Children’s Hospital Trust is the rainwater. Where many South African facilities may fall short, the Red Cross Hospital and the Trust work tirelessly to offer the extensive branch of services that will nurture, heal, help, educate, provide for, defend and protect our country’s children. They go over and above the call of duty – and the call of the noisy hadeda – to make this possible.

Likhanyile, wrapped in bandages after her recent skin graft, is going to be okay. Her head, face and arm will heal well with the regeneration of youth on her side. And she has been given the very best care. Her mom is just so grateful. She felt positive instead of worried when her baby went in for surgery today. After the care that she’d already received at the Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital, she trusted them with her baby. And she was right. The Red Cross community brought Likhanyile back to her mom safely after surgery, wrapped in bandages as if she had been wrapped in a hug. Likhanyile will go on to shine her light brightly, as she was meant to do.