Lethukukhanya Organisation in desperate need of donations

Lethukukhanya Organisation is calling for the public to help the organisation with food donations and transport as it is struggling to get funding from the Department of Social Development.

Lethukukhanya brought back its feeding scheme programme on June 13 after getting food donations from the Gift of the Givers.

The organisation runs the feeding scheme programme part-time because it struggling to get enough donations from the public.

The feeding scheme used to be on Tuesday and Wednesday but this changed drastically as the organisation lost many of its big sponsors due to Covid-19.

Lethulukhanya continued with the programme, however, they only cooked when they had received enough food donations.

“Weeks, even months would pass without us cooking for our beneficiaries. Sometimes we would give them veggies to cook in their homes and unfortunately, that wasn’t enough but that’s what we could give them,” said Rantsoaki Elizabeth Snyders, founder of Lethukukhanya.

According to Snyders, the organisation will now fully provide the feeding scheme programme on Thursdays after getting food sponsorship from the Gift of the Givers.

No subsidy

The organisation was founded in 2016 by Rantsoaki Elizabeth Snyders after seeing how elderly, orphans and disabled people in Eden Park struggled not having proper meals every day.

Some individuals also found it hard to go to their clinic checkups especially old people.

Furthermore, the organisation extended its helping hand to neighbouring areas such as Thokoza, Bhekela, Extension 2, phase 4, Ext 6 and 9.

It’s been eight years since the inception of the organisation and it hasn’t received any subsidy from the Department of Social Development.

Lethukukhanya solely relies on donations and the organsiation has been struggling during the past eight months with donations coming in slowly.

It was registered as an NPO in 2019 after being told that it wouldn’t receive any funding unless the organisation became registered. However, according to Snyders, nothing has changed even after its registration.

Lethukukhanya has to make ends meet when it is time to take the elders to the clinic as the organisation has no transport.

They assist 10 people who are using wheelchairs and the transport issue makes it hard for the organisation to be able to always fetch and take them to the clinic or when it’s time for them to come to Eden Park to collect food parcels.

This year February, the organisation had social workers who came to inspect the premises to establish the needs of Lethukukhanya.

According to Snyders, the social workers told her that she must expect feedback after three months but she hasn’t received any communication.

Lethukukhanya Organisation is asking for the public to help them with food donations and transport.

For more information, contact Rantsoaki Elizabeth Snyders at 079 539 6206.