Careona Community donates food for Msawawa
KYA SAND – Janna Couto and her neighbour started a drive called Careona Community to coordinate food donations during lockdown.
Craigavon residents have been feeding the Msawawa informal settlement community during the national lockdown.
Janna Couto and her neighbour started a drive called Careona Community to coordinate food donations for those in need with people living in their residential estate during the lockdown.
Many people in the area were interested in helping out, so the duo made it available for people to donate food and donation money remotely.
“There was a massive response and it has been overwhelming,” said Couto.
Through Jozi Together, which is an initiative to connect people within communities to non-profit organisations working to donate goods during this time, various spots were identified as a dire need.
“Anyone that wants to help out and lives near or within our area, will be able to connect with us via this platform. We can then use our resources to help those in need in our area,” she said.
One area identified was the Msawawa informal settlement, which backs onto Craigavon where Janna is based, where over 500 children and 120 families, child-headed families, disabled and the elderly were provided with food.
Couto said, “Initiatives like this are important as government aid has been severely lacking. People that are in need are getting very little response from both government and NGOs. It is for this reason that we decided to fill this gap in any way that we could.
“We are not a big organisation at all, but we value any contribution from those that have the capacity.”
She said that it is mainly non-perishable foodstuffs, toiletries, blankets and clothing that are required.
“At the moment we have a storage facility that has been donated to us held at the Storage Hub in Cedar Square for goods to be distributed, but we are appealing to those who mainly live in the Johannesburg North area, particularly Fourways area and surrounds who can travel during the lockdown to help us out.”
Couto said that there are multiple open shops to choose from at Cedar Square if residents would like to contribute.
Details: www.facebook.com/careonacommunity/
