DA women’s group visits Uitenhage in election drive
A shack that is scorching on a sunny day and ice-cold in winter is the only home for an unemployed Lapland single mother of five whose burnt house the DA’s Women Network leaders stumbled upon during the party’s door-to-door campaign on Saturday morning.
Sophie Snyers, 59, lives with her children in the shack behind the remaining walls of her house which burnt down in 2017 after her electricity box caught fire.
Snyers said one section of the walls had been rebuilt by the municipality towards the end of 2017 after she reported the incident, but no one had returned since then.
She and her children are financially dependent on her 23year-old son’s mental disability grant, while her 16-year-old son’s R400 government child support grant goes towards his school needs.
The unemployed Snyers said she was uneducated and too old to be employed and too young to qualify for the government’s monthly grant for the elderly.
The family have used donated furniture in the shack, which is divided into a kitchen and bedroom.
In an attempt to make ends meet, she collects and walks around selling glass bottles to whoever will buy.
“I don’t make much from this. For example, I only managed to make R62 last week and what can you do with R62?” Snyers said.
When asked, Snyers said she had not registered to vote but intended to do so before registration closed on January 27.
The party’s Team One South Africa spokesperson for women and Western Cape health MEC Nomafrench Mbombo said the body was aimed at promoting the party’s vision of establishing “one South Africa for all”.
“It is not only an injustice but a gross violation of human rights for a single mother of five to be living in such a hot shack after promises to build her house were made almost two years ago,” she said.
“This is a reflection of the injustice faced by women who are unemployed and are receiving unequal pay while they have responsibilities beyond their immediate families.”
She tasked the area’s DA activists, including councillors Georgina Faldtman and Shaun Soyes, to report the family’s situation and to provide feedback.
She said the door-to-door campaign in Uitenhage’s Lapland and Colorado Street in Missionvale on Saturday and Sunday was aimed at informing voters and reaching those who could not make it to the town halls and public areas where campaigns were usually held. “There are elderly women who are at home who are not informed about what they are voting for and those are people whose voting choices are influenced by what they see in front of them.
“They know nothing about what happens in council but they pick who to vote for depending on what they get in terms of service delivery and access to facilities.
“The people who suffer the most are those who are either too old or disabled or unable to hop on the bus and go to the town hall or offices to communicate their needs.”
The party promised to fight corruption and crime, create jobs, provide basic services and improve professional policy in Nelson Mandela Bay.