How Art Is Saving Children's Hearts In South Africa

In 2019, at 23 weeks pregnant, Nhlamulo Tlakula received news no expectant mother should ever have to prepare for. Her unborn daughter, Bogolo, had a complex congenital heart defect and would require three open-heart surgeries before her second birthday. Doctors in South Africa recommended she terminate the pregnancy.

She refused. Instead, with the COVID-19 pandemic sweeping the globe and a state of emergency declared in South Africa, she boarded a flight to Boston, where she was born. She was eight months pregnant, alone, and without a plan. Her then-husband watched the delivery over Zoom at Boston Children’s Hospital. At two days old, Bogolo underwent her first open-heart surgery. Tlakula watched her daughter's heart beat through an open chest.

"I didn't know how I was going to pay for the surgeries," Tlakula recalled. "But I had this insatiable feeling that things would work out." 

And they did. All three surgeries were covered under the Affordable Care Act of former President Barack Obama. Bogolo is now a bright and bubbly six-year-old with a “distinctly American accent,” says her mother.

But coming home, Tlakula found herself confronting a sobering reality. South Africa, a country of 60 million people, has just 40 pediatric cardiologists — when it needs at least 60 — and only nine pediatric cardiothoracic surgeons across the entire country. Of the nine provinces, only four have heart centers. Each year, between 12,000 and 15,000 babies are born with congenital heart defects. Many wait three to six months, sometimes a year, for surgery. Many do not survive the wait.

"Someone close to me had their grandchild recently pass away for the exact reasons [why] I established this foundation," Tlakula told OkayAfrica. "They were waiting for surgery that they never got."

Determined to change this, Tlakula spent a year reading medical journals, contacting their authors, and navigating legal frameworks to establish the Grateful Hearts Foundation in partnership with the Nelson Mandela Children's Hospital. The foundation's mission is focused on training the next generation of pediatric cardiothoracic surgeons.

This week, that mission takes the form of an art exhibition. Titled Pelo: A Mother's Love, the showcase — opening tomorrow, Saturday, March 14th, and followed by a private auction on the 14th — brings together some of South Africa's most celebrated artists, including Zizipho Poswa, whose miniature work references her acclaimed exhibition on Xhosa motherhood, Imbeleko, and Sam Nhlengethwa, whose piece is an ode to Johannesburg. Boemo Diale, Baba Tjeko, and Justice Mukheli are also included. All proceeds from ticket sales and artwork sales go directly to the foundation.

Tlakula, who has no medical background, secured these artists largely through direct messages on social media. "It goes down in the DMs," she said, laughing. "I shared my story, shared what I was trying to do. And on the basis of that, they decided to partner with us."

The decision to use art as a fundraising vehicle was not accidental. For Tlakula, creativity is love made visible, and in a world she describes as "messy," she believes joy is a form of resistance. Partners Keyes Art Mile and Aspire Art Gallery share that vision.

Tlakula sees the foundation's work as advocacy: pushing for policy reform, redesigning referral systems, and building public awareness around a crisis that most South Africans simply don't know exists. "People don't know what they don't know," she said. "This is one of the ways that just talking, being vulnerable enough to share my experience, creates awareness."

Bogolo, now in school in the United States, sent a video message for the opening. She couldn't be there in person; her school requires re-registration if she's absent for more than ten days.

"I hope one day she'll understand that this is all for her," concludes her mother.