Every six weeks, Salaam Foundation delivers 10 000 meat and veggies packs to families around Gauteng. The meat packs supplanted by healthy organic vegetables are delivered to various communities helping to fight the huge issue of food insecurity. Around eleven communities receive the packs and 15 areas are visited for home deliveries. We are going to be introducing some of these communities and the impact these packs have.
This week the focus is on the community of Thembelihle.
Thembelihle which literally translates into “place of hope” is a community based in the south of Soweto. The community started when workers moved there for jobs. The area was formed in the mid-1980s with residents granted permission by the government to reside in the area and given material to construct informal housing.
A number of jobs have become available as a result of the development of light industry and business in the predominantly Indian suburb of Lenasia nearby. Thembelihle was classified by the apartheid government as a “squatter settlement”, which resulted in little or no socio-economic development being undertaken by the apartheid authorities. However, despite the lack of any development and assistance from the apartheid government, the community continued to grow and become a bustling area.
Once the apartheid government was removed and a new democratic dispensation began, the residents of Thembelihle were hopeful of receiving proper services and facilities. However, the community had to continue waiting for visible signs of job creation, public housing construction, the provision of water and electricity and enhanced educational and recreational facilities. In the late 1990s, there was even an attempt by the government to move the community to Vlakfontein citing a geological issue on the land. The City wanted to relocate them owing to the presence of dolomite in the settlement which the City said posed a risk. Several sinkholes have formed in the area which are reportedly as a result of the dolomite. However, the people resisted this through the Thembelihle Crisis Committee, a platform used to articulate their struggle and make their demands heard through, which was formed in 2001. The people did not want to move to an area and rebuild their lives and they felt the City did not provide them with sufficient information.
The Crisis Committee still exists and is used to fight for the rights of the community. A study in 2011 found that there are 6775 informal dwellings, of which 3597 were primary dwellings and 3178 were occupied by sub-tenants.
Salaam Foundation’s work in the area
Thembelihle is like many of the other informal settlements around Johannesburg and South Africa more broadly. While there are some signs of developments with some people living in proper housing, the majority still live in informal housing. The roads are unpaved and at the mercy of the elements from the heavy rains to any other extreme weather conditions. There are many in the area who are in desperate need of assistance with high levels of unemployment and poverty and many other social ills present.
Salaam Foundation has been working in the area for a while providing 60 families with meat and vegetable packs every six weeks. Ali Kandulu who lives in the area and is responsible for distributing the packs to families said the families who receive the packs really appreciate it.
Kandulu said most of the families cannot buy meat from the local supermarket because it is unaffordable. Through the work Salaam Foundation does in the area, the families are able to enjoy a meat parcel.
You can support this work by donating:
Salaam Foundation
FNB 6266 914 7665
Branch 250 737
Ref: South Africa + your name (zakat/lillah/sadaqa)
Section 18a certificates available on request
Email Fatima Sookharia at fatima@salaamfoundation.com
