Anele Nyongwana was born in March 2000. She turned 24 years old in 2024. She was brought to Children of Fire in February 2006 at the age of five years eleven months old, from Eikenhof squatter camp in Gauteng Province, South Africa, where she lived with her parents and siblings.

Anele was referred to the charity by Dr Bruno Pauly and one-time volunteer Nolwandle Made, a hydrologist who was working in the area. Anele sustained flame burns on her face and hand at the age of three months, when a candle allegedly fell over and set the paper on the shack walls alight. The burning material fell onto her face and burned it badly, and she injured her hand when she tried to push it off. The baby had negligently been left alone.

She was admitted to Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic Hospital in Soweto. The nurses allegedly told her father that she would not make it and they suggested to give Anele an injection to let her "slip away". Moses Fuzani, the father, refused and requested to speak to the doctors. He stayed with his daughter the whole night, and in the end, they told him that the baby was going to be OK.

Anele healed but she ended up in hospital again as an infant and as a toddler at least twice, with severe malnutrition and dehydration. She appeared not to attend the Clinic regularly and only had the earliest vaccinations that at child needs, rather than the full course. Weight measurements were not made regularly by nurses, because the child did not attend healthcare facilities until she was seriously ill.

Through this child and many other children over some 30 years of helping poor families, we came to believe that parenting classes should be an essential part of the South African school curriculum. Teenagers should be taught how to care for babies before they fall pregnant and have their own. While they are meant to learn about protein, carbohydrates, fats, vitamins, in a food pyramid in primary school, theory does not translate into practice. Many meals are carbohydrate-heavy with a little fat and protein only. And few people who have ground available to grow vegetables in, grow sufficient to supplement their diet. It is a curse of poverty and of ignorance.

In the subsequent years, the skin of Anele's face contracted due to the scar tissue not growing. When she was finally brought to Children of Fire, she could not close her eyes and mouth in a relaxed situation, i.e. when sleeping. We also noticed that her hair was tinged with red with malnutrition.

She had a few problems adjusting to the new environment at Children of Fire and the school, especially encountering other burned children. She ran onto the street in terror when passing the school yard, where Sicelo, Sizwe and Feleng (all of whom are burned in the face) were playing. She displayed shock and fear at the sight of other burns survivors until she was gradually acclimatised, thanks to the help and kindness of the other children.

Anele's spoken English was good for a young child, and she often gave the impression of being a sensible and intelligent child. However, we came to believe that Anele has more problems than just her disfigurement to deal with. She was unusually affectionate towards strangers, or people she just met, in a concerning way. Additionally, she did not know how to use a toilet, was severely incontinent at night - worst of all, she did not seem to see that this was a problem. She "decorated" an entire bathroom with faecal matter one weekend. She was prescribed Amitriptyline for incontinence, for some months.

She had no knowledge of road safety at the very beginning, either. We taught her life skills, clean and hygienic living and how to read and to write. She could write neatly and copiously when copying from the blackboard, but she did not understand the meaning of what she was writing.

After many years of helping her, we informed the parents that she would be unable to get a reasonable Matric pass and that it would be better to take her out of school and into vocational training instead. (South Africa's Schools Act requires a child to either complete Grade 9 or school up to the age of 15 years, whichever comes sooner). With their agreement, we arranged for her to spend a week at a commercial laundry to see how she fared as a teenage helper. She did not learn the names of anyone that she worked with, nor even the name of the company nor the street where it was based. It seemed that she could maybe learn to be a cleaner, an assistant in a kitchen, an assistant at a hairdresser.

She carried extra weight and even though we arranged regular gym attendance for her at a professional gym, she seemed not to get fitter or thinner. The parents did not take the vocational training suggestion well and persisted in sending Anele to high school until quite a ripe age.

Medically, she was interesting. She had a strangely mobile scalp the like of which we had never seen before nor since. It gathered in folds at the back of her head. She had several dermatological issues which were treated. And she had a large number of excess teeth. We attempted to take some of them out under local anaesthesia but she was terrified. So, we ultimately had to take her to extract seven teeth under general anaesthesia at a private dental hospital in Pretoria. She still had more excess teeth out after that and she had braces to improve her mouth shape, through a private orthodontist Dr Esra.

Anele had bilateral lower eyelid contracture release (ectropion) and a tissue expander inserted in her scalp at Joburg Gen by surgeons Dr Tim Christofides and Dr Ridwan Mia in mid-2006. The port extruded and the expander was removed, with minimal scalp advancement, in less than two months, by Dr Craig Wittstock.

She then had reconstructive surgery with Dr Martin Kelly at Netcare's Sunninghill Hospital in March 2007, which made her face a lot more relaxed. She had further operations with this skilful surgeon.

Anele also went to Johannesburg General Hospital (Charlotte Maxeke) for assessment several times and was booked for further tissue expansion to restore her hairline and possibly to build a nose-tip. That ultimately did not happen. Part of the problem was that, having experienced the benefits of the private hospital, her mother was less than content for her to be treated at a state hospital.

Ectropion scarring remained an issue but her eyelids were not top-priority as her pupils are not directly exposed to the air as she turned her eyes up at night. We took her to optometrists, and she received glasses.

While Anele stayed long term with the charity and entirely free of charge, she also visited her family briefly during holiday periods. She would travel back to the shack with beautiful new warm winter clothes for herself and for her siblings, as well as wash things, toys and more. She formed close friendships with the other young children on site and also participated in safety plays that the children put on at other schools, to educate children about fires, burns and their consequences.

In early adulthood, Anele surprised us all by raising issues with the Human Rights Commission about appearing on an awareness billboard more than a decade earlier, that her father has agreed to and additionally about having had one week's work experience as a teenager. The parents of the other girl who was depicted on the same billboard wrote a strong statement making it clear that everyone was informed as to the purpose of the picture and that everyone was happy at the idea of helping other children. The photo itself was of young Anele and young Zanele in the arms of firefighters when they visited a fire station in Durban. The children had many enjoyable journeys to the seaside and to the mountains, as well as to the theatre, to zoos, to parks and restaurants, as part of their wider rehabilitation.

The matter was settled amicably as it was clear that the parents had not explained matters fully to their child when she was younger.

Overall, helping Anele can be considered a success story. Like all of our children, we did not just have to treat her historic burns through surgery, therapy and rehabilitation, but we also had to help with additional unique health challenges and also the effects of familial poverty upon her health and her intellectual development. Most of our children return to Children of Fire in adulthood, either to help the other burned children who follow in their footsteps or to gain office skills and similar to help gain employment. Some children return because they struggle to cope with social rejection of their scars and we work through the issues with them. Anele has not yet come back for further assistance.