Disabled Diepsloot community members receive support during lockdown

Disabled Diepsloot residents received food parcels on 13 May to help them through the Covid-19 lockdown period.

Babikie Sathekge, known as Papi, is an activity coordinator for a non-profit organisation called the Diepsloot Youth Programme, which has been helping coordinate relief efforts in the township.

The Diepsloot Youth Programme works to expose children to arts and culture and encourages an entrepreneurial spirit in the youngsters. However, Sathekge explained that since the lockdown, they have noticed that there is a greater need to provide people with essential food items.

“At first I was running a Saturday drama class, we cater for some of those students during the lesson. When we stopped the classes because of Covid-19 the learners were crying because they didn’t have anything to eat at home.”

Through the organisation, they helped arrange food vouchers for the learners to help them through the lockdown. Sathekge explained that they realised that this crisis extended beyond the learners who participate in the programme.

He highlighted that many organisations are interested in assisting the Diepsloot community and Sathekge uses his knowledge of the area to help coordinate efforts. There are three wards which cover areas of Diepsloot. These wards are then divided into blocks and the blocks are then broken down by street. Leaders are then selected to represent a specific street and block.

Through this process, the leaders are able to compile a list of people who are in dire need. “We capture on the system all the names and then look at the duplicates, as one person might register with two different street leaders, so we go through this to make sure it is fairly distributed.”

He said in some instances people might try to register for two food parcels and in these cases, he will visit the families to evaluate whether one food parcel might be enough.

“We believe this is the best way to do it, I live here and work here so I’m familiar with the community.”

He added that if people are fighting over food, he works to inform them on how the process works so that they can fill in the forms in order to receive packages.

Volunteers from the Southern African Youth Movement also joined in on the day to help distribute parcels. Fifty-seven food parcels were delivered to those with disabilities and 110 food parcels were donated to those with chronic illnesses.