The Sunday News
Robin Muchetu, Senior Reporter
WHILE the world looks for ways on how to contain coronavirus (Covid-19), some philanthropists are providing food for vulnerable households within their communities in order for them to make it through the day.
One such initiative is the duo of Miss Yvonne Maphosa, an author and Chemical Engineer in Cape Town and a colleague Miss Sithabile Gandi who both come from Plumtree in Matabeleland South Province who have started feeding their own.
The initiative, they said, was a result of shared love for their home area.
“With the Covid-19 lockdown, Sithabile and myself realised that various projects were being carried out to assist vulnerable groups around the country. So, we decided to do something similar for our home town. We named the campaign #100HampersForTitji because our objective was to raise funds to purchase 100 food hampers for child-headed and disadvantaged families in Titji area (Mangwe). These are often ignored vulnerable members of society, even during normal times, therefore we realised that their situation would be worse following the Covid-19 pandemic,” said Miss Maphosa.
She said they decided to put things that would be important at times like these, like basic foodstuffs, vegetables to make it nutritious, beans and chunks to help curb malnutrition and added soap for hygiene purposes.
“Each hamper had the following; mealie-meal, cooking oil, instant porridge, chunks, beans, cabbage, vegetable hamper, salt and soap,” she said.
The duo said their initiative started in Plumtree because charity begins at home.
“We started with Plumtree Town because charity begins at home. We are looking at getting into the rural communities, then we will expand to other communities as time and resources allow. Poverty is a reality in our town. There are many child-headed families in the community as well as vulnerable groups. With increased migration to South Africa and other countries in search of greener pastures, broken families remain behind. So, we wanted to play a part in uplifting our community,” they said.
They said the project was well received and the community was very appreciative.
Asked on where they sourced their food hampers, they said they were assisted by well-wishers.
“We received donations from well-wishers in the form of money, fuel, transport for volunteers doing distribution, foodstuffs and volunteers. We raised most of the funds through a Social Media campaign.
We worked with a team of local young people that co-ordinated the identification of beneficiaries. The members of the team were Handsome Sibanda, Dumisani “DJ Yugoe” Magalane, Kudzai Mzondo, Lisa Tshuma, Polite Ndlovu, Prosper Henry Moyo, Mthulisi Mkwananzi and Schoolboy Ndlovu. We had volunteers from reputable NGOs such as ORAP, Feed the City and EatOut Movement. The CEOs of the three organisations were part of the volunteers. We hope this will go a long way in raising awareness for the community’s needs from other organisations that we can partner with in future. Above all, donors made the initiative a success. We wouldn’t have done it without them,” said Miss Maphosa.
Miss Maphosa said people must emulate such initiatives to assist those in need.
“Those wanting to do similar projects must harness the power of social media and other platforms like GoFundMe. They should be dedicated to the project and be prepared to deal with all the stress that comes with organising such campaigns. I would also say, they should account for everything so that donors know that their donations were used for the intended purpose, and most of all, they should lead by example.
“If more people do what they can in and for their communities, it would go a long way in alleviating poverty,” she said.
After the lockdown has been lifted Miss Maphosa said they would be donating sanitary pads to disadvantaged school going girls in townships and rural communities and they have so far collected close to 1 000 packets of pads and are hoping to have more by the time they do the distributions.
