Father of Alexandra calls for donations
While most are finalising their Christmas and holiday plans, not everyone is looking forward to the festive season.
|||Johannesburg - While most Joburgers are now finalising their Christmas and holiday plans, not everyone is looking forward to the festive season.
Many Alexandra residents, living right next door to some of the city’s wealthiest suburbs, especially the aged, the youth and child-headed households, face a bleak festive season. Most of the aged in the area are people who worked as domestic workers and gardeners in the city suburbs and who, when they became too old to work, were left to fend for themselves without an adequate pension. Many are looking after their grandchildren, relying solely on their state pensions.
Every year, Alexandra community leader Linda Twala, of the Phutaditjaba Centre, collects hampers to distribute to these vulnerable people to give them a little joy over the holidays.
This year, a party will be held on December 9 for the children, and the following day for the aged.
Twala, who is also known as the ‘Father of Alexandra’, has been a community leader for 47 years.
In 1967, he founded a centre for the aged where they could access medical care, food and companionship.
The centre grew from strength to strength, from a corrugated iron clinic to a proper satellite clinic. It now also has a library, a community board room and hall, a soup kitchen and, soon, a centre of excellence.
The centre feeds 200 children and 150 aged people a day.
Twala says 90 percent of Alexandrians are unemployed.
”There is real poverty there, but the worst-affected are the elderly, the orphans and child-headed households. Every Christmas, we try to give food parcels to as many people as we can. We are aiming at distributing 3500 food parcels to see them through the festive season,” he said.
Many of the elderly are destitute.
Twala is appealing to people to contribute food parcels.
”I am blessed to have touched many lives in my many years of community service. It has been a journey that injects me with hope and energy to do more for my community. That is why I am inviting people to celebrate with us by helping these vulnerable people,” he said.
Twala is the recipient of the Inyathelo Awards for Lifetime Philanthropy.
Anyone who can assist should contact Twala at 082 442 2866.
@annacox
anna.cox@inl.co.za
The Star
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