Johannesburg - While many Joburg residents are finalising their festive season holiday plans, not everyone is looking forward to the holiday season.
Many Alexandra residents who live next door to some of the city’s wealthiest suburbs face a bleak festive season. And this year, following the flash floods in which many people lost their homes and possessions, life is even more bleak for the vulnerable as the resources of those assisting them are being stretched even further.
Every year, the leader of the Phuthaditjhaba Community Centre in Alexandra, Linda Twala, collects hampers to distribute at a Christmas party for the elderly, orphans and child-headed households to tide them over the holidays, when his feeding scheme is closed.
“Most of the aged in the neighbourhood are people who worked as domestics and gardeners in the city’s suburbs and who, when they became too old to work, were left to fend for themselves, without a proper pension.
“Many are looking after their grandchildren, relying solely on their state pensions,” he said.
This year, a party will be held on December 8 for the children, and for the aged the next day.
Twala, who is known as the father of Alexandra, has been a community leader for 48 years.
In 1967 he founded a centre for the aged where they could get medical care, food and companionship. The centre grew from strength to strength, from a corrugated iron clinic to a proper satellite clinic.
It now also has a library, a community boardroom and hall, a soup kitchen and, soon, a centre of excellence. The centre feeds more than 200 children and 150 elderly people each day.
Twala says 90 percent of Alexandra residents are unemployed. “There is real poverty there, with the elderly, orphans and child-headed households the worst affected. Every Christmas we try to give food parcels to as many people as we can.
“We aim to distribute 6 000 food parcels to see them over the festive season. It would be wonderful if people out there could adopt a granny or an orphan,” he said.
Many of the elderly are destitute. Twala is appealing to people to contribute food parcels.
“I am blessed to have touched many lives in my many years of community service. It has been a journey that fills me with hope and energy to do more for my community. That is why I am inviting people to celebrate with us by helping these vulnerable people,” he said.
Twala is the recipient of the Inyathelo Awards for Lifetime Philanthropy.
Call him on 082 442 2866.
@annacox
The Star