Struggling mom hopes for help
Ms Sonia Gumede gave birth to triplets last year and there was happiness in the family.
Their happiness was short lived as the family lives in a shack and struggled to make ends meet. The triplets were born on November 29 last year. The trio of two girls and one boy, was named Siphesihle, Silindile and Siphamandla. Ms Gumede has two other children, a girl who is 17 years old and a four year-old boy.
Ms Sonia Gumede is staying at Empumelweleni in Extension 5 at the Vaghuis together with her husband and the children. According to health officials she needs help, as she needs food to enable her to breast feed her children. She has been encouraged to breast-feed her babies, but she also needs a lot of support as well. But all is not lost, as rays of hope seem to appear on the horizon.
Cllr Timothy Lukhele says he is aware of the matter and his office is trying their best to help the family. “We are tying to help the family as we are aware that they are staying in an illegal area. I will be meeting ANC officials to see what we can do for them. We have also engaged other stakeholders like the Community Development Workers (CDW) to try to source help.
We will make sure that we follow all the processes to help them to get an RDP house. We are doing this for this particular family only because of seeing their situation and we are not, by any means, encouraging people to invade land that does not belong to them hoping to get helped,” explained Cllr Lukhele.
