Recognised for her extraordinary dedication to ensuring chronically ill children can access life-saving medical treatment through Wings and Wishes, Inge Human is this year’s community category winner of The Herald Citizens of the Year awards, supported by Nelson Mandela University.
Human, 58, has spent more than a decade ensuring critically ill children can access life-saving medical treatment through the nongovernment organisation.
As manager of Wings and Wishes, she co-ordinates travel and support for families across SA, providing transport, guidance and hope during some of the most challenging times in their lives.
Her unwavering commitment has transformed the lives of thousands of children.
Human could not hold back her tears when she learnt she had won.
“I was shocked when I got the call. You do what you do, but don’t always realise that other people notice it.
“When I received the call, I was actually working, making bookings and arranging stuff.
“I never expected we would come up for an award like this. It is just mind-blowing.
“But this is not always an easy job; it is hard work running an NGO,” Human said.
With funding often difficult to secure, she said having someone recognise their work was a humbling yet overwhelming experience.
She said the Wings and Wishes team had the privilege of witnessing miracles when a child was able to access the right medical care through their help.
Human hoped winning the award would raise the nonprofit’s profile in the community, allowing more people to learn about its work and be willing to collaborate.
Through funding, she said, Wings and Wishes was able to continue its work.
The organisation is also the backbone of many of the bigger charities it works with, including the Smile Foundation.
Though Wings and Wishes transports children to receive medical care, Human said the team largely remained in the background.
Why should a child be punished because of where they live? So, I had a meeting with the transplant unit and said we would ensure the child gets there on time.
— Inge Human, manager of Wings and Wishes
Human said Wings and Wishes was launched in 2006. She joined 10 years later, having worked in the charity field with children for years and realising how many families struggled to access excellent doctors and hospitals in SA.
However, it was an encounter at Gqeberha’s Dora Nginza Hospital that ignited her passion to do more.
“I was visiting another child in 2015, and a mum and daughter were sitting there.
“We started chatting, and she told me they had hitchhiked from Makhanda to attend the cardiac clinic.
“It was a really frail, thin little girl. I thought ‘this is not right, you are endangering your life by hitchhiking’.”
She said she had heard about Wings and Wishes and approached them to ask if she could work for them.
Recalling all the relieved faces of parents she has helped over the years, Human said the journey often began with distrust and disbelief that someone would sponsor their transportation costs.
Parents would often ask: “What’s the catch?”
Human said children from the rural Eastern Cape had previously not been easily placed on transplant lists because paediatric transplants usually took place in Johannesburg or Cape Town.
“There is also a timeframe by which they need to get to the hospital for a transplant. And to me that was so unfair.
“Why should a child be punished because of where they live?
“So, I had a meeting with the transplant unit and said we would ensure the child gets there on time. Just put them on the list, give them a chance.
“We have had six children from the province undergo transplants that are doing so well.”
When she joined the nonprofit in 2016, one of the challenges was finding funders for flights.
For years, they knocked on doors and were met with rejection.
That changed at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, when FlySafair became a sponsor.
This also assisted the team’s longstanding partnership with Intercape, which started in 2016, to help children who needed to travel within the province.
“I love people. To me it was important to have a personal [connection],” Human said.
“We started meeting people at airports and bus stations, making sure they knew where to check in and who was fetching them on the other side.
“You can imagine how daunting it must be if you come from a rural area and land at OR Tambo.
“How are you going to find your way? How are you going to know where to go?”
Having started as manager in 2016, Human initially worked with two staff members, but they had to be retrenched due to the impact of Covid-19.
Human now handles the bookings, media, fundraising and marketing.
She said Wings and Wishes had a total of 15 volunteers in Gqeberha, KuGompo City, Durban and Johannesburg.
Her biggest fear was having to turn a child away.
“But what keeps me going is the gratitude of the families.
“To see a child that can hardly walk get on a flight, go for a heart op, come back 16 days later and run out of arrivals, helps me keep going.
“It is the difference we make and the hope we give to these families.”
Looking to the future, she said she would love to mimic Australia, which has a similar organisation but with a network of vehicles that travel to fetch children.
This would mean families in deep rural villages or outlying areas would not need to take two or three taxis to reach a bus to transport them to hospital.
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