Travelling sisters take a scenic detour to charity work
ALEXANDRA - A group of women who have spent most of their lives travelling South Africa’s scenic routes, have since taken a detour.
After many years of travelling South Africa’s roads, a group of women have decided to detour and travel the less scenic route of charity work.
Sisters Travelers Organization, led by its chairperson Fikelephi Sithole and company co-operative officer Lorraine Baloyi, took a conscious decision to travel a new road after being ‘appalled by the neglect of gogos in the township and the despicable lives being led by orphaned children’.
“It was the dumping of the gogos by their own children and the impoverished lives they led, including those of orphaned children who had no one to turn to, that prompted us to travel a new route, a route in the service of our community,” said Sithole.
The organisation is made up of 30 women who clubbed together many years ago to travel and explore their country, but that passion has since shifted to a new frontier in the fight against poverty and helplessness, Baloyi added.
The organisation launched its charity arm in June last year and is already making inroads in its work and feeds more than 40 gogos and orphaned children on a monthly basis.
“We use our own meagre resources to run the monthly soup kitchen and disbursement of food parcels to those who are less fortunate than us in our community of Ext 2 in the Far East Bank,” said Sithole.
“We have renovated a nearby community park and turned it into a thriving open centre from which we run the soup kitchen with a little help from Lisette Shain Datnow of the Union of Jewish Women.”
She said her vision for the organisation was to establish a shelter for gogos and orphaned children, which will also take in abused women wishing to start afresh in life.
“We have already relocated a few abused women to a nearby shelter,” she said.
She called on potential funders to come forward and partner with them to cushion the plight of the elderly, the orphans and abused women. “We would like funders to partner with us and help us help the gogos,” Sithole said.
Details: 083 740 5716; 061 113 4950; fikelephi@live.co.za
