Combating COVID-19 in Western Cape
By Nomacebo Mbayo
Delft South feeding kitchen committee members
Since the first announcement of the national lockdown by the president Ramaphosa communities across the country have been forming coalitions and support groups in an attempt to combat COVID-19 and reduce the spread of the virus.
Community leaders building teams for community feeding schemes to assist community members who may not be able to sustain themselves during the lockdown.
Poor communities have shown unity and continue to work together. Most communities that R2K have been monitoring have received some food parcels dealing with food security during lockdown. Nonzame’s Kitchen received 250 food parcels for the beneficiaries while the Manenberg Community members in need also received food parcels from the City of Cape Town after R2K’s Amina Abrahams sent through a request for assistance.
Delft communities have been running feeding schemes for those in need. Our comrades in Eastridge and Tafelsig in Mitchell’s Plain have been actively involved with support groups that are feeding children in their communities. The Mfuleni community also continues with assisting those who are most vulnerable to COVID-19 with community leaders working together. A group of business tuck shop owners also played their part by contributing with 1000 food parcels for those in need in the area.
More and more communities have invested in the mask making business, selling these in shopping malls also assisting with keeping citizens safe when shopping for essentials. We have seen more and more people starting to practice the mask rule, however the social distance rule seems so hard to follow especially with overcrowding during the SASSA pay out days.
In monitoring repression
Over 200 community volunteers mostly coming from civil society organisations have been trained as accredited monitors to assist monitoring repression during lockdown. These monitors are expected to monitor cases of misconduct and document both sides of the story during the incident.
Since a lot of cases of police misconduct have been reported across the county things seem to be getting better.
