Cape Town - Lifting an enormous weight off the shoulders of patients and their families as well as aid and support post-hospital care, Healthcare Workers 4 Palestine (HCW4P) South Africa and Gift of the Givers (GoTG) have started its distribution of its Ubuntu Buckets.
Launched in July, the organisations partnered for the humanitarian campaign, Ubuntu Bucket Drive, aimed to supply monthly care packages to patients at regional hospitals across South Africa.
Yesterday, HCW4P SA and GoTG teams visited Paarl and New Somerset Hospitals, the first two hospitals identified to benefit from the sustained initiative.
The Ubuntu Buckets overflow with nutritious non-perishable food items and hygiene products, able to feed and sustain a family of four for an entire month.
Forty buckets were distributed between the two hospitals, with buckets to be provided every month for an entire year.
HCW4P SA Western Cape events chairperson, Dr Samah El-Boraei, who has worked at both hospitals, said patients have to travel far, often by use of public transportation, and face high unemployment and high levels of food insecurity.
“New Somerset Hospital sees a lot of severely malnourished children and you can imagine for every child who is malnourished, there’s a family that’s even more malnourished.”
“The whole reason for this, in terms of HCW4P SA, we see the ongoing genocide, we see the malnutrition and the food insecurity that’s happening in Palestine, and there’s not much we can do there but that really just reminds us and we’ve always felt that while looking abroad you need to look in your own backyard and just seeing the levels of poverty in our country, just made us want to do something for our own communities and we see it as South Africa and Palestine, working hand in hand.”
GoTG founder Dr Imtiaz Sooliman said hunger in the country was increasing.
GOTG supports small community organisations, and has set up 175 feeding centres across the country, and which is growing, empowering these communities to run the centres.
“In terms of hunger, it's been very marked. And we’re picking it up during disasters. In the last two to three years, when we go on site, people normally ask for building kits, now they're asking for food.”
Paediatric consultant at New Somerset Hospital Saeeda Chippendale said social workers will be one of the main coordinators so that the buckets reach some of the more urgent cases.
“What we have seen over the last while is that a lot of patients are coming in, children and adults, quite malnourished. Quite unwell, because they haven't been feeding well. They haven't been able to take the medication on an empty stomach.”
Contributions for the Ubuntu Bucket Drive can be made via BackaBuddy (Ubuntu Bucket Drive) www. backabuddy.co.za/campaign/ubuntu-bucket-drive~2
While the buckets are valued at R550, any amount can be sponsored via the BackaBuddy campaign link or deposited into the GoTG bank account: Gift of the Givers, Standard Bank, Pietermaritzburg Account number 052137228, Branch Code 057525, Reference Ubuntu.
Cape Argus