SUZANNE BELLING
PHOTOGRAPH SUPPLIED
Pictured: “Fairy godmother” Pam Green with Joseph Phukubje.
“To crown it all, I drove down a wrong road and had to do a u-turn to get back to where I was supposed to go. When the traffic light turned green, I did this and, in the corner of my eye, I spotted a man holding up a beggar’s banner.
“I ignored it and drove past. Then fate intervened. Something told me to go back, so I parked my car and walked back to the man to offer help.”
The beggar, Joseph Phukubje, a homeless man living under the Grayston bridge, was not holding up the normal banner asking for money, work and offering blessings.
He was holding up his CV and matric certificate and was asking for help to find a job. He admitted he had used drugs and had been sent away from his sister’s home in Mpumalanga.
Pam, who has a history of voluntary work and is an activist providing relief for victims of xenophobia, gave him food and toiletries to clean up. She said she would put a post on Facebook and see if she could help.
She took copies of his CV and matric certificate and bought him a cheap cellphone in case there were responses to her post.
“It was absolutely amazing. I went back to the office at 14:30 and over 1 000 people had received the post, which was linked to 500 others. Thereafter, it went totally viral.”
Pam’s phone was beeping continuously and by the evening she was inundated with responses. One, in particular, looked promising. “It was from Ntando Kubheka who shared a mutual Facebook friend.”
An interview was set up. Pam helped Joseph with money for taxi fare and bought him airtime. She was a little uneasy that Joseph might “cop out”, but after “a little wobble” he turned up for the interview and landed a job with Ntando’s Locomute, a company that hires out cars at a per minute charge.
“They said Joseph could try out all the divisions in the company and choose a job where he felt he would fit in.”
Pam sobbed at her desk when she heard the news. At the time of this interview she had 36 500 shares on Facebook. They have probably doubled by now.
Through social media, Joseph obtained clothes and a place to stay. He was totally overwhelmed.
“Pam, is it real?” Joseph asked his benefactor. “People have been stopping and speaking to me, with all kinds of offers.”
Pam, dubbed “the fairy godmother”, is over the moon and so inundated with requests from people seeking jobs that she created a Facebook page. “Second Chances” and wants to expand it into a fulltime activity.
“I have always thought of myself as a free spirit, a kind of Tinkerbell fairy and am known for dressing up as one for parties. I have found my path, my truth,” she said.
And Joseph ,“a special young man”, has found his.
