Food donation for Platfontein community

THIS weekend, Lisette Datnow, a member of the Union of Jewish Women Johannesburg Branch (UJW), will be handing out packets of e’pap to the !Xhun and Khwe communities at Platfontein just outside Kimberley.

Over 1 500 packets have been bought by UJW through the generosity of donations from ex-south Africans now living in Australia. UJW has been serving less fortunate communities for just on 90 years.

A former executive member of the UJW, Datnow spent five years in Kimberley before returning to Gauteng almost three decades ago. Her heart has always been in giving back to the community.

“For years I ran the ‘Do Good, Have Fun’ branch of UJW. Many of my projects revolved around making a difference to the lives of children, such as upgrading and refurbishing schools in townships and assisting with the upgrading of early childhood learning centres”, she says.

During the Covid-19 pandemic she has found herself working with both UJW as well as with other charities to bring help to some of the country’s most vulnerable communities.

“I travelled with another charitable organisation to Limpopo several weeks ago to deliver packs of e’pap to hard-hit villages there. It was a most amazing experience.”

This Sunday, she will be doing the same on behalf of UJW at Platfontein, 15km outside the Diamond City, where the !Xhun and Khwe communities have been living since having been settled there in 2003.

!Xhun community leader

Antonio Saboa said the donation was very welcome. “There are no cases of Covid-19 in the community (as) we observe all the health regulations,” he says, adding that the extended lockdown has exerted a toll on the two communities.

“Many of our young people especially do not have jobs.”

Khwe community leader Reverend Petrus Manu agrees. “The community is very poor. Unemployment is a major problem and we accept this donation with great gratitude.”

“One of the reasons I chose Kimberley to reach out to,” explains Datnow, “is because of the memories I have of the incredible work done by the doyennes of the Jewish community, such as Shirley Katz of the now defunct Kimberley UJW branch. She was involved with running Cosy Corner and various feeding and empowerment schemes.

“These days the Jewish community in Kimberley and Griqualand West is tiny and I thought it would be a great opportunity during this unimaginable public health crisis to pay homage to Shirley and so many like her who had done so much during their day to bring hope to communities in the Northern Cape.”

Griqualand West Hebrew Association chair Barney Horwitz says the community is delighted by UJW’S interest in the Northern Cape.

“The community is gratified Lisette has chosen to extend her philanthropic work to the Northern Cape and to do so in the names of the legends of the Jewish community of the past.”

e’pap is a specially formulated porridge filled with essential vitamins and high in minerals. It is prepared simply by adding water, cold or hot, and can also be used to make pancakes or muffins or mixed with milk, fruit juice or fermented milk. A single portion a day, even if there is no other food available, is enough to stave off hunger.

“The food packs that we drop off will be enough to sustain 500 adults or 1 000 children, below the age of six, for a month,” says Datnow.

“It’s a far more effective solution for vulnerable communities than traditional food parcels. e’pap really is a most effective way to bring the greatest relief to the biggest number of people in the shortest time.”

Datnow will be assisted in the distribution by members of the Griqualand West Hebrew Congregation and Rotary Kimberley South.

“I’m looking forward to going back to Kimberley,” says Datnow, “and getting to meet the peoples of the !Xhun and the Khwe, and finding out if there are perhaps other ways we can help them, especially when it comes to early childhood development.”

sewage outfall main pipe from Gogga Pump Station to the Homevale Waste Water Treatment Plant that would be divided into two sections, namely rising and gravity sections, as well as the construction of associated fixtures (valves, chambers and a gas release station).

In October last year, the DFA reported that the Homevale Waste Water Treatment Plant, which had been upgraded at a cost of R366 million in 2016, had been out of operation for more than a year.

Stormwater and raw domestic wastewater both flow into the Homevale Waste Water Treatment Plant and are processed together.

Several components that are crucial to the water treatment process were reported at the time to be non-functional.

Municipal spokesperson Sello Matsie confirmed at the time that the Homevale sewage plant had been out of normal operation due to maintenance challenges which, he said, were exacerbated by vandalism.