True caring goes beyond Mandela Day

So that’s it. Twice a year we are helping those less fortunate than ourselves. It is a sad state of affairs.

Then finance minister Malusi Gigaba makes a line at a new soccer feild at Kholwani Primary School in Soweto, 18 July 2017, as part of his 67 minutes for Mandela Day. The minister handed over a library and a computer lab to the school. Picture: Nigel Sibanda

I’ve always wondered why NGOs – in times of abuse, a rape culture and child abandonment – are treated as seasonal priorities.

At the very heart of these organisations are men and women who have been entrusted to keep women and children safe when others turn our women into statistics and our children into orphans.

We have to really ask ourselves if the government has really done enough as a support system for these organisations.

People Opposing Women Abuse, Usindiso Women’s Shelter, Othandweni Children’s Home and Takalani School for the Blind are but a few of the organisations that spring to mind when I think of those that help to mend broken lives and hearts.

They are extensions of police stations, hospitals and rehabilitation shelters … they offer help beyond the limited reach of the hand of government.

Though their praises are not sung loudly for all to hear, the work these organisations put in is life-changing. And yet they go forgotten for 98% of the year.

Then comes the month of July – and Mandela Day on the 18th in particular – when we all become little Nelson Mandelas, when our compassionate nature outshines everything else we do.

Many of us rush to Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic Hospital with broom in hand to save the day.

Employers who have no care for the everyday economic struggles of the people will take their most marketable team members to the most downtrodden orphanages. What a brilliant PR exercise!

Post-July 18, it’s back to normal in anticipation for the December Santa Shoe Box collection.

So that’s it. Twice a year we are helping those less fortunate than ourselves.

It is a sad state of affairs.

We never know if one day it may be us, or our sister, aunties, friends or parents, who will seek refuge in a shelter for abused women.

We never really know what tomorrow may bring and because of that we need to be responsible enough to keep the doors of these organisations open and their supply rooms always full to the brim.