OWN CORRESPONDENT
Myra Goldenbaum, the national president of the UJW, also mentioned the generosity of the organisation’s donors and patrons.
“We are particularly appreciative of the support we have received from ex-pat South Africans in Australia, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Canada. They acknowledged our need, and responded immediately.
“COVID-19 has tested the capacity of communities and nongovernmental organisations across the world,” said Goldenbaum, “perhaps nowhere more than in South Africa, home to millions of destitute and starving citizens. UJW branches throughout the country have risen to this challenge.”
Since the start of the pandemic, the organisation has been inundated with calls for support nationwide, and thousands of people in urban and rural areas have received food parcels to help stave off hunger.
“The list of beneficiaries”, Goldenbaum said, “stretches from Gauteng to Cape Town, Durban, Port Elizabeth, and East London.”
Food parcels have been delivered to orphanages, aftercare and feeding schemes, crèches, community organisations, soup kitchens, foundations for the blind and partially sighted, homes for the aged, and refugee shelters. In addition, indigent new moms with babies, physically and intellectually challenged children, places of safety for women and children suffering domestic abuse, informal settlements housing both white and black families, individuals unable to qualify for official support, and members of our own Jewish community, have all benefitted.
In addition, the organisation has donated food vouchers, baby clothes, diapers and baby formula, sanitary items for new mums, children’s clothes, blankets for children, educational material on COVID-19 for many who are unaware of the magnitude of the problem, toys and educational packs (to keep children occupied during the lockdown), and lucky packet hampers.
Food has been delivered to universities for those students who were unable to return to their homes before lockdown; and thousands of nutritious e’Pap packets have been handed out in both urban and some of the country’s most impoverished rural areas.
Kosher Mobile Meals (the flagship project of UJW Johannesburg) has had an increase in requests for meals and other assistance, and all recipients have received extra booster packs of non-perishable food items, treats, toiletries, and kitchen cleaning materials to see them through the lockdown. To help deal with the isolation of the elderly, every recipient is phoned on a regular basis.
UJW was also a proud beneficiary of superb food parcels from the HCI Foundation and eMedia’s COVID-19 Relief Fund, and featured on national television in this regard.
