Noah Can continues moral duty
"But the rainy day has been five months now and savings have been used up," said Wellman.
To date, the Norwood, Orange Grove and Houghton Community Action Network (Noah Can) has donated 2 071 food parcels to those in need.
Administrator at Noah Can, Emily Wellman said more people have joined the food parcel recipient-list. “This is because a lot of the new recipients had a life, they had savings for a rainy day. But the rainy day has been five months now and savings have been used up,” said Wellman.
She added that it was much easier to raise funds when lockdown began than it is now. This is mostly due to a lot of people affected by the economic repercussions of lockdown.
Noah Can, however, continues to do its work of giving to those in need. Wellman explained that they are especially worried about those who need to take medication, but aren’t able to eat properly as one can get quite sick (not necessarily with Covid-19) if they consume some medication without food.
“Children who have been getting their food from their schools’ nutrition programme are now relying on Noah Can for that food. Parents have been calling to say kids don’t have anything to eat. Every week when we do distributions; if we have 200 parcels, we will send out 200 text messages. We always assume that a few people won’t come to collect, meaning we would have extra parcels to give to someone else who wasn’t due to get that day. But people come and they advocate for themselves; you will have grandmothers begging for food for their children.
“You will have mothers who have just given birth and don’t have food at home. We have a moral duty to carry on but we are just citizens of the area; we are not an organisation. Nobody gets paid. We sit up until 2am trying to send an email to a business [to obtain] R400 for this and that. This is because we know if we don’t make it happen, the consequences are dire,” Wellman explained.
Looking ahead, the volunteer said they are planning to have street ambassadors, where they can have one person from each street who the Can’s representative. This will enable the network to form a stronger database on the ward’s residents and their socio-economic situation.
Wellman said, “We don’t just want to give food hand-outs, but also provide hand-ups. This will include start-ups of vegetable gardens, sewing clubs and more for and by our recipients. Therefore, the plan is to have a skills register where our recipients will fill-in and share what skills they have so that we build then instead of just being passive recipients.”
People can continue to help with non-perishables and funds towards the Noah Can.
Details: Visit the NOAH CAN Facebook page for more information.
Related articles:
https://www.citizen.co.za/rosebank-killarney-gazette/350658/donate-colour-and-win-this-heritage-day-noah-can-has-something-in-store-this-heritage-month-let-the-creative-tools-come-to-play/
https://www.citizen.co.za/rosebank-killarney-gazette/346001/donate-to-noah-can/
