GOGOS A-GO-GO

Take your grandmother on a tour she will never forget

T was a dream that inspired Gogo Thokozile Matjokane to spend her last days seeing the world — a dream in which her late brother spoke to her.

“Sisi,” he said, “your dream shouldn’t die with us. Tour!”

The 67-year-old had once planned to travel with her sister and brother after they retired and accessed their pension funds.

“I thought: ‘We can’t die before we put our feet in the ocean’,” she says.

Although she was happy her siblings had begun to build their dream houses after working for so many years, she reminded them that they also needed to travel and see places they’d never been to.

And so she’d told them: “Save some of your money so that we can go to Durban and Robben Island. ”

But Gogo Thoko lost both her siblings before her wish of travelling with them was fulfilled. The dream bothered her. “I was already feeling lonely. I had no idea who I would travel with,” she says.

She decided to tell her children about the dream. They encouraged her to go door-to-door “and ask other pensioners to see the world with me”.

Now, as the founder of the NGO Gogo on Tour, Matjokane has more than 8 000 keen-to-travel brothers and sisters around South Africa.

Gogo on Tour is a free travel club for the elderly, which divides its members into groups according to their age. The “silver group” is 60to 75-year-olds — these are the younger ones who have more energy to travel further.

The “gold group”, 76- to 85-yearolds, travel within their province, often on day tours as they may not have the stamina for more extensive outings.

The platinum group is for those aged 85 and up. They do not physically travel, but rely on silver members to bring them souvenirs from the places they go. The oldest member of the group is 111.

What started as an initiative in Soshanguve, Pretoria, Gogo on Tour has more than 5 000 members in Gauteng and 3 000 in Limpopo and