The Chatsworth APD is the provincial office of the Association for People with Physical Disabilities in the KwaZulu-Natal Province (KZN). They run protected workshops, have educational centers for children, physical and occupational therapy facilities, and social work services. They had a learning center on sight for children with severe multi-disabilities. The teacher who runs the center works with the children at school and have their parents come in to train them on how to practice and work with their children at home. The goal of the center is to work with children to work them up to integration into a traditional school. This is not always possible for all students but success is obtained.
We visited two of the protected workshops. One was on the sight of the Chatsworth APD and were working on two projects when we visited. The first project was assembling and packaging curtain rods. The other project was disassembling tampons that were wrapped to tight. The workers had to take the plastic wrapping off, then take off the cover, and finally take out the string. The cotton was then placed in bags and recycled they received <ZAR1 for every plastic gallon bag full of cotton.
The second workshop had a woodworking shop and parts assembly as well as the curtain rod and tampon project.
The staff at the APD facilitated our first encounter with Durban curry. It is amazing. We had a Bunny Chow, which is Durban Indian Curry inside a hollowed out loaf of bread. It was delicious. This is a Durban specialty originating in the apartheid years, when the Indian Restaurants were not allowed to have plates so the restaurants circumvented this law by serving curry in a loaf of bread. I miss Durban curry already.
