Rhodes University’s award-winning community engagement programme, the Nine Tenths Matric Mentoring Programme, celebrated winning first in the MacJannet Prize for Global Citizenship recently, beating over 388 universities in 77 countries. The University was awarded this prize earlier this year but due to COVID-19 disruptions were not able to celebrate with other prize run-ups. The celebration was the last leg of a week-long satellite conference on community engagement held in Bloemfontein. The prize-giving also served as an opportunity for the top three prize winners to discuss the value of global citizenship, strategic partnership, and the importance of community engagement projects. President…
Author: Rod Amner
By TEREZ CAIRNCROSS A group of dedicated women from the Bowker Street Baptist Church give up half a day once a week to cook and dish our soup to those in need of a warm and nutritious meal. Alerise May started the Bowker Street Baptist Church Soup Kitchen with her sister-in-law in 2016. She began with soup with bread and occasionally received food from the community kitchen, which allowed her to cook more extensive and more diverse batches. Unfortunately, as time went on, funds depleted. The pastor of the Bowker Street Baptist Church stepped in to help Alerise and her…
By RENEE MOYO What started as an endeavour to help a few of her neighbours quickly became a full-blown meal centre. Aunt Betty’s soup kitchen is now open to all community members, with people willing to travel on foot from informal settlements as far as Papamani. Betty explains how many families go without food for two to three days at a time. “When you go around the community, the yards look very clean, but if you go inside, you’ll find that it’s empty. There’s nothing in the house.” Her words paint a vivid picture of the reality in Makhanda. Although…
By TOLERATE CHILOANE Di-anne Oosthuizen started the 16 Currie Street community kitchen in April 2020, just after Covid hit. “I saw there was a great need when Covid hit, as a lot of people lost jobs and had no other means of income,” she says. The kitchen caters to children, the elderly and anyone without food. People come from far and wide: Vergenoeg, Xolani, Currie Street, Middle Terrace, Albany Road, and Scott’s Farm. Di-anne says it’s essential to have community kitchens in different places as they cater to many people. “People won’t have to walk far for a plate of…
By ISIPHO NGUTYANA The kitchen: Masibambane Community Kitchen The chef: Lulama Maseti “I always wanted to start a soup kitchen, but I am unemployed,” says Lulama Maseti, 34. “When the lockdown started, I saw breadwinners in my community lose their jobs, and I thought that starting this would help a lot of people”. Maseti, who was born and bred in Makhanda, is a mother to two children. She lives with her mother in Extension 8. On a typical day during the hard lockdown, Maseti would cook on her three-plate gas stove and feed over 300 people in a day. “The…
By JOSIE MAKKINK The kitchen: eThembeni Community Kitchen The chef: Limise Gagayi “It was a surprise, even for us, to see that we can do things. What we are doing is actually working. It is actually changing lives.” These are the words of Limise Gagayi, who, with the help of her husband, is making a difference within the eThembeni community. Gagayi, originally from Gqeberha, responded to the need she saw in Makhanda with action. She says, “We cannot just fold arms and wait for someone, or for government, to give it to us. We have just got to stand up…
By MOGAU MATLOGA The kitchen: TheMzukisi May Community Kitchen, Extension 6; secondary location in the eNkanini informal settlement. The chefs: Linda and Mzukisi May The Mzukisi May Community Kitchen started when the founders noticed more people coming to them asking for help. The Mays started the kitchen using their pensions, which burnt a hole in their pockets. But, donations have been a great help. They need more recurring and stable donations due to the large numbers of people they support. “Here it was 140 children, 105 adults,” Linda says, looking through their records of the people they have served. They have…
By TRISTAN COOKE On the mantlepiece above the TV sits a soccer trophy; it has found the highest point in Ndombozuko Faxa’s living room. In the kitchen sit two men, their impatience seems to have stemmed from interrupted screen time. Ndombozuko, who established a soup kitchen two years ago, assertively quells a murmuring house and continues her train of thought: “If the children are not eating well, they may (use) drugs or do some theft so that they can buy and sell food.” “I have a soccer team (13-16 years old), some of the young ones (children) go to the…
By NAMUKUTA SONIA CHARITY SAJJABI Coronavirus. Food shortages. Community kitchens. Nomonde Waka-Caliber read the signs. She, along with other volunteers, was more than willing to step in. “Some people were losing jobs, some were getting less money for salaries, some didn’t have food to put on the table; so we decided there was a need to volunteer ourselves,” she says. Waka-Caliber has volunteered before – she worked at Masifunde Education and Development Trust until its closure. She now operates a community kitchen in Extension 9. She is proud of the Covid-19 awareness campaigns run from the kitchen and the preventative…
By NONJABULO NTULI The kitchen: The Joza Street Community Kitchen The chef: Noluthando Zake Noluthando Zake, born and bred in Makhanda, and her kitchen epitomises ubuntu. She has been running it for two and a half years. In the early days, she used her own money for ingredients. But, after the word got around, she started getting occasional donations. The kitchen operates on Wednesdays and Fridays, starting at 2.30 pm when the school day ends. “When I started at 1 pm, I realised that children would come after I’d finished serving and there’d be no more food.” It is hard not…