CAPE TOWN - Founder of the Khayelitsha Art School & Rehabilitation Centre (KASI RC), Mandisi Sindo and co-director Liso Sindo, turned their Shack Art School and Theatre into a soup kitchen to feed hungry kids in their community.
KASI RC is a shack theatre based in the heart of Khayelitsha where locals and visitors can enjoy the performing arts and partake in educational workshops.
They train more than 80 young unemployed youth daily and assist them in finding jobs, internships and collaborations for those who have graduated.
However, with the current national lockdown regulations due to the Covid-19 global pandemic, Sindo and his wife Liso shifted their focus to cooking for the kids in their community.
"Just after we closed, it was not even a day or two our students were already visiting our Shack which is also based in Khayelitsha and when they came they wanted something to eat and would stay in our house for the whole day," said Sindo.
"We love kids and will do anything to make them happy because we want them to prosper, that's why we put some money aside from our own grocery money to make this dream a success.
"We started on the first Friday of the lockdown and we thought only our 80 something kids will come but later that day we saw some elderly who are not part of the programme also coming to get food.
"That's when we saw the big need for food during this difficult time," he added.
KASI RC has served over 1 000 people through the soup kitchen project with hundreds receiving food parcels to go cook at home themselves.
Sindo said every day new faces are coming from different sections of Khayelitsha when serving on Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays.
"People are starving and lack essentials such as masks and sanitizers; our artists got their gigs cancelled and scholars don't have access to the internet.
"We have not received anything from the government. The theatre itself is self-funded and both my wife and I are freelancers, so it has not been an easy ride," he said.
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