MEDIA: Southern Courier
http://southerncourier.co.za/22247/meals-on-wheels-changes-lives/
Meals on Wheels changes lives
Youth in Moffatview are given a lifeline to help themselves improve their lives.
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Some of the youth volunteers in Moffatview.
MOFFATVIEW – Meals on Wheels in partnership with Team Zodwa in Moffat View Project aims to change the lives of the people in the area, especially the youth.
Meals on Wheels is celebrating 50 years of changing lives, and Team Zodwa Fire and Ice 777 Summits invite everyone to support this fundraising challenge and change the lives of the children of Moffatview and South Hills forever.
Moffat View is a suburb in the South of Johannesburg; close to City Deep. It is an urban area that is economically depressed and peppered with council owned flats. The population is a mixture of Africans, Coloureds, Indians and White people. The drug use in the area is high, the policing around the area and many social services are very weak. The result is that the children are vulnerable to drug use, abuse and neglect. Many of the children are also nutritionally deprived.
Meals on Wheels Community Services in conjunction with a local resident, a pensioner who started the feeding programme using her R800 per month government pension to fund it, currently run a basic feeding programme for the children in the area, which is primarily sponsored by Sizani Foods.
They feed 250 children every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. This feeding scheme is very basic and food is cooked in the stairway of one of the blocks of flats. A more suitable, hygienic and permanent structure is needed to prepare the food, as well as a safer environment for the children to eat their food and spend their afternoons. The children eat out in the open come rain, sun or winter. They do not have access to a resource centre or a library to carry out their school projects or a safe place in which to do their homework. The feeding scheme needs to expand to serve about 500 children in the area and provide at least one meal a day for five days of the week.
The Team Zodwa Fire and Ice 777 will summit together with Sibusiso Vilane and in partnership with Sean Disney, Director of Adventure Dynamics, will climb Mount Kilimanjaro with 25 climbers to raise R250 000 towards the set-up of a pop-up village. These are made up primarily of shipping containers creating a quick, low-cost development. Rainbow Villages will concentrate on a food kitchen, a vegetable garden, a bakery, a sheltered eating area, and a play area and homework room. The project also earmarked three crèches, which will be helped to develop and train teachers, parents, volunteers and the children.
In partnership with Khulisa and NDYA the project is currently training youth volunteers in Moffatview. This programme runs for two months, where new skills are acquired and a certificate will be issued upon completion. NDYA is paying them a stipend for the duration of the programme. The project is working with several Early Child Development (ECD) crèches by training their volunteers, assisting with registration and compliance, creating vegetable gardens and working towards them becoming self-sustainable through various projects, as most of the parents are unable to pay fees.
As there are very few resources in the area for children, youth and adults to access the internet and learn computer skills, the project is appealing for donations of computers, cell phones, gardening equipment, toiletries and other goods you have no more use for.
Please note that a Section 18A and BEE points for your Score cards can be issued for companies wishing to donate. If your company sponsors a climber the same applies. You will also be able to place your company flag together with the Meals on Wheels flag on the summit of Kilimanjaro in this historical moment. This will be the first time that the Meals on Wheels Flag will fly proudly on the summits of the world’s tallest free-standing mountain.
Visit www.teamzodwa.co.za for more information or contact Irene Rugheimer on 072 409 6594 or Vicky Sepp 078 618 0394.
*Compiled by Vicky Sepp
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