Keeping the homeless warm during winter

A local organisation hopes to hold a total of 67 soup kitchens in Benoni and Brakpan by the end of the year.

Some of the homeless people who come to the soup kitchen every Monday evening. They are, back (from left): Ishmael Mplelwane and Jan Mthombeni. Front: Zean Ferriera (co-founder of the project), Gift Nkosi and More Koboekae.

“The aim is to encourage people to help the homeless within the community and to continue to change our neighbourhood,” said co-founder of the 67 Soup Kitchens organisation, Zean Ferreira.

“More people need to stop treating homeless people like criminals by driving past them at the robots.”

In the Benoni area, 67 Soup Kitchens has a soup kitchen every Monday night, near the BP garage on Tom Jones Street.

The organisation aims to feed about 30 people each week at this location, and to alternate between providing peanut butter sandwiches and coffee one week, and soup the following week.

67 Soup Kitchens was established last year, in March, and has since grown from strength to strength.

“They have really helped us, they have given us shoes, clothes and anything we need,” said Gift Nkosi, one of the men who benefits from the initiative.

The group aims to hold a total of 46 soup kitchens by the end of August, in both Brakpan and Benoni.