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“Anyone can be a philanthropist. You don’t have to be a Bill Gates or have lots of money. In this way, we encourage everyone to give whatever they can,” said Bheki Nkosi, director of the Southern Africa Trust.
Nkosi was helping out at the street shop hosted by City Press and the trust. The street shop gave 50 destitute women and children an opportunity to go on a shopping spree.
The concept allows people to choose what they like from donated goods, rather than take what is given, which is how charity usually works.
Tables were laid out with clothes, toiletries, toys, nappies, baby formula, books and sanitary pads, which were collected over the past few weeks by employees of City Press and the Southern Africa Trust.
The guests were then given vouchers, which they exchanged for the goods they selected from the shop. The shoppers were also treated to lunch.
The shelters that accepted the invitation were People Opposing Women Abuse (Powa), the Frida Hartley Shelter for destitute women and children, Strabane Mercy Centre and Heaven’s Angels.
All the shelters are located in and around Johannesburg, and provide a safe space for women to get back on their feet after finding themselves in desperate situations.
Jeannette Sera, counselling services manager for Powa, said she was glad to have been invited by City Press.
“It really feels good because we have got mothers who are so young and don’t have any skills at all, yet they need supplies like clothes and sanitary pads. This helps our organisation a lot,” Sera said.
She said it is shocking that women as young as 25 have three children and don’t have skills to enter the workforce; as a result they find themselves destitute.
Currer Bell (not her real name), one of the shoppers, said: “I left my husband after he was abusing me, [I left] with nothing but the clothes on my back. I am now living at Heaven’s Angel and they are helping me to slowly get back on my own feet.
“I saw a pair of takkies which I would really like because my shoes are breaking apart,” she said.
Nomthandazo Nhlapo rallied the City Press newsroom to collect for the store. She said it had been a moving experience to help other women to whom fate had dealt such hard knocks.
“It was an experience I will never forget, seeing the smiles on the women’s faces and the children getting toys and clothes,” Nhlapo said.
Since 2014, City Press and the Southern Africa Trust have been profiling African philanthropy through the How To Spread It series.
The many stories from the continent we have told have been about Africans giving back to their communities in money, mentorship and in kind.
The street shop was a chance to show rather than tell what a difference giving can make.
