Gift of the Givers’ KZN relief effort reaches 1 million litre mark
THE water relief campaign by Gift of the Givers (GOTG) stationed at the Cape Town International Convention Centre (CTICC) received a massive response from South Africans wanting to assist the victims in the flood-stricken communities of KwaZulu-Natal.
Over the past eight days, GOTG project manager Ali Sablay said, their water collection drive hit the one million litre mark, with at least one truck leaving for distribution every day.
Sablay said the impact of these donations was huge as one five-litre bottle of water could literally save a family, not to mention the many people on chronic medication that could not take their medication as certain parts of KZN’s water supply were contaminated.
“The distribution is being taken care of by our teams on the ground in KZN which identify various red zone areas that require water urgently, such as clinics, hospitals, schools, dialysis centres and even a mortuary that has called us for water. We found that people were coming to collect bodies at the mortuary, but they did not have water to wash the bodies for dignified burials,” Sablay said.
Sablay said the organisation was grateful to Titan Cargo for transporting the water collected at the CTICC to the people of KZN at no cost.
Titan Cargo owner Sugen Naidoo is originally from KZN and visited the area during the floods where he saw the damage first-hand. This motivated Titan Cargo to join GOTG’s efforts.
“We closed off the water collection point at the CTICC on April 30 and people as far as Knysna, Grabow, and Worcester came all this way to bring those five-litre bottles of water. The response from schools, corporates and youth has also been amazing,” Sablay said.
Sablay said they came across some touching stories of people going out of their way to do their part and donate water.
Some of these included an elderly woman who called to make a donation from her Sassa pension money, and an elderly man who took a bus from Kensington and walked from the bus stop by the Grand Parade in town to the CTICC with two bottles of water for the water relief efforts.
“This shows there is a lot of hope in this country. Active citizenry is taking place and making a difference,” Sablay said.