The throbbing heart in one of South Africa's most neglected communities is called Where Rainbows Meet.
GOOD Leader Patricia de Lille, and officials Brett Herron and Shaun August, visited the community training centre on International Mandela Day to oversee the disinfection of its classrooms and laboratories so that training can resume.
In the meantime, under lockdown, Where Rainbows Meet has taken on the responsibility of feeding the people. It is co-ordinating 37 community kitchens in the area providing a nutritious meal to 10 200 people every day.
The entire undertaking is funded by donations and fuelled by members of the local and surrounding communities; it receives no government support.
Where Rainbows Meet is in Vrygrond, one of the oldest informal settlements in Cape Town. Located near Muizenberg, it was originally settled by members of the fishing community more than 80 years ago.
Director and co-founder of the organisation, Mymoena Scholtz, has worked in Vrygrond for 25 years. In 2008 she responded to the community's demand for a skills development initiative of its own, and Where Rainbows Meet was born. It provides computer, sewing and food gardening training, among other learning activities.
"We usually cook for 500 people, too, but the coronavirus has caused incredible levels of stress in the community. We are responding to the peoples' needs. We have earned the peoples' trust because what we do is directed by them, and for them.
"Vygrond desperately needs government's support. It shouldn't matter which party is in power. The needs of the people who live here should be recognised and taken care of just as they are in other communities.
"From a training perspective, Vrygrond is evolving. But in a physical sense, it hasn't moved anywhere," Ms Scholtz said.
Aunty Pat said: "It is very humbling to visit Vrygrond on International Mandela Day. It is humbling because the conditions in Vrygrond are not the conditions in which Madiba believed our people should be forced to live. It is humbling to see the energy and spirit of the community, with this caring organisation, doing work that government should do."
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