#KZNHeroes: CA steps out of his privilege to bring bread to the hungry

Eyousuf Aziz lives just behind the UPL chemical factory that was torched during the unrest in Durban and KwaZulu-Natal last week. He was standing on his balcony with his younger sister when they heard an explosion and saw what he describes as a “massive fireball” tear through the sky.

“It was the first time ever I had fear for my life,” he told The Citizen this week.

But Aziz refused to let that fear consume him. Instead, he jumped into action to try and help.

Aziz’s parents – who immigrated from Pakistan to South Africa with nothing, and today own a successful restaurant chain in Durban – have always taught him to put others’ needs before his own.

He knows what it is to struggle but today considers himself privileged.

One of the most pressing issues immediately after the looting and violence abated was the massive food shortage it resulted in. And this was where Aziz decided to start.

A chartered accountant himself, he managed to convince his parents to make their own stock available at cost and his aunt – who owns a local deli store – to keep her doors open as a base from which to trade.

But when the racial profiling saw black people – including one of his own best friends – prevented from accessing certain areas to even buy essential goods and services, Aziz decided he had to do more.

“It broke my heart,” he said, “So I thought, I’ll come to them”.

He rallied together a group of friends and they arranged 1,000 loaves of bread between them and went out into some of the hardest hit areas to hand them out.

And he continued this through the week – even after falling victim to the unrest himself, when a truck carrying more than 3,000 loaves he had arranged was looted.

He managed to replace the stock after putting the word out on social media and getting an influx of offers to assist. To date, he and his team of volunteers have handed out around 5,500 loaves of bread.

He says for him, the experience has been hugely unifying.

“The one thing I learnt is we are all so so similar,” he said, “There truly is so much more that binds us together than holds us apart”.