This letter is not discrimination or a judgement against poor, rich, black or white people in South Africa, but a serious alert to the entire nation.
We live in times of change whereby many diseases abound in our environment, some of which we are not aware, and if we don’t act soon, we will all be at risk in future.
Our country is one of the clumsiest, most unhygienic and unhealthiest zones in the world because of the way in which the poorest of the poor are living in informal settlements.
Most of them live in shacks where there’s no running water or clinics, just poor sanitation. When known and unknown diseases strike, shack dwellers are badly affected.
We need to bear in mind that these people are of working-class calibre; you find them in the hospitality environment, serving people daily.
Thus any type of sickness can spread easily and be passed on to others around them.
Diseases don’t take your status into account; everyone is at risk.
My message is for everyone to be more responsible at all times.
The reason I feel the need to say this is because some people, more especially the rich, might think they are too far from informal settlements to be affected. That’s a myth.
The danger is facing us all. If rich people could take steps, together with poor people, to combat the threat of disease, then we can achieve a hygienic South Africa for us and future generations.