Eunice John
they chatted from 10pm to 4am; sitting on opposite couches, playing guitar, discussing their feelings and planning their wedding.
“We were the first non-white couple to marry at the Currie Road Full Gospel Temple,” she said. “We had five drum majorettes and five sailor boys from the community for our wedding and many poor kids attended.”
They moved to Mpumalanga before returning to Durban in 1990 to use music as an outreach. In 2000, their expensive musical equipment was stolen from the church and the obvious culprits seemed the people in the nearby Bottlebrush informal settlement.
Along with others from their church, the Johns descended on the squatter camp, determined to recover their stolen instruments. What they found there, stopped them in their tracks. “Just a stone’s throw away from our ‘happy clapping’ church we encountered real suffering: children with running noses, sores, under nourished, in rags. We realised we had not even scratched the surface of poverty and deprivation.”
Eunice began a feeding programme for 350 children once a week.
“If it was not good enough for us to eat, then it was not good enough for the children either.”
They followed protocol, engaging with the Bottlebrush leadership committee.
When the local government clinic was closed because the social workers feared for their lives, Eunice was determined to fill this gap. She found a kindred spirit in Australian Shirley Eunice with children from the festival. Brownhill and her outreach “Megacities”.
Next, Eunice set up the Children’s Festival, working with the church’s Action Team. Over the past 18 years this has grown from strength to strength.
“For a day, 150 volunteers act as parents to 20 children each. They serve them breakfast (hot dogs, a cupcake, fruit and cold drink).”
These volunteers have all been trained to notice if any child has anything wrong, and local volunteer Dr Ashley Hammond treats minor ailments in a special tent, while referring serious ones to a hospital.
A well-known musician or artist, drawn from 15 different nations, is invited to entertain, and talented children are given a chance to perform alongside them.
Lunch is a KFC Streetwise 2; each child is given a huge bag of goodies, clothes and toys and an ice-cream. This year the event will be on November 25.
As for the illegal internment in the US, the Johns travel there frequently. Their children study in the US. But earlier this year Eunice was refused entry. Shackled at the hands and feet to a chain around her waist, she was escorted from the airport and spent six weeks at the Los Angeles Refugee Camp under appalling conditions along with 127 women seeking asylum. Many were suicidal.
“We were woken up to eat cold porridge at 4am, then had to wash bathrooms and toilets.”
According to Eunice, many of these women could not speak or read English. She helped many of them write their stories that they would present to a judge. Two English speakers from Ghana and Mozambique helped her.
During the 2015 xenophobia attacks, Eunice went into what was known as the Unit 3 camp (Chatsworth) and worked alongside Clive Pillay from the Mandela Youth Centre for a month. “I was responsible for all the women and babies, cooking for 2 500 people.”
Their church now provides 4 000 meals four days a week. Their goal is to make this seven. “We want to build a centre which will include a medical centre, a children’s centre for education and boarding, as well as a recreation centre to help the Bottlebrush community. Eunice is currently building a recreational centre for the Brooklyn Heights Primary School.
Anyone who wants to get involved can e-mail info@ goodnewscenter.org or call 031 464 6110 or 072 645 2088.