February 6, 2008

Neighbors Blast South African AIDS Orphanage

A woman in South Africa who opened an AIDS orphanage in a Johannesburg suburb last week has received complaints from neighbors who feel that the orphanage is depreciating the value of their property, reports South African newspaper The Star/IOL News (int.iol.co.za, 2/6).

Nomonde Duda, who runs a nonprofit home for orphaned and abandoned HIV-positive children, moved the center to a new location in Johannesburg’s Kensington neighborhood last week, the article reports. After Duda’s donors threw the children a housewarming party, the article adds, she began getting complaints from neighbors: “They came to me on Saturday and told me to control my dogs because they were barking too much,” Duda said. “My next-door neighbor complained that they found two plastic balls in their garden, which they said was disturbing their alarm system…. They also complained that the HIV/AIDS factor was going to bring down the value of their properties.”

One neighbor threatened to sue Duda if she did not move out of the neighborhood, The Star reported. But a spokesman for the AIDS Law Project, South Africa, says that there are no legal grounds for forcing Duda and the children out of the neighborhood. “The kids are not posing any threat to them,” spokesman Jonathan Berger said. “There is no legal or moral basis to object to them living there. [Their remarks] are shortsighted and show a lack of understanding,” Berger said.

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