Page 20 - Rural Voice III - Responding to a Pandemic

sizEka mavumEngWana
“When we reached the villages, people were fighting, because everybody was hungry.”
FIGHTING FOR FOOD PARCELS
sizeka mavumengwana wriTes abouT The joy of helping one person each day, and The horror of hunger, as villagers in The sTerkspruiT disTricT foughT for food parcels
Before COVID-19 arrived, we at the Herschel Legal Advice Office in Sterkspruit were doing project cycle visits with seven groups of women who had started stokvels in different communities. We assisted each group to draft a constitution to determine how the stokvels were going to be managed, and taught them how to protect their interests.
how The pandemic impacTed The work of herschel legal advice office in The communiTy
The COVID-19 pandemic affected our work, because we couldn’t go and visit the stokvels. Groups were not allowed to meet, so we gave advice by phone to people who had problems with loan interest calculations. We also invited stokvel participants to visit us, so that we could sort out their misunderstandings. When the country was locked down at level 5 and level 4, it was very difficult. Once we opened our office at level 3, we were able to better assist the community groups.
how The herschel communiTy was affecTed by covid-19
We were so lucky that no one in the office was affected by COVID-19. Sadly, in our community, many people were infected. The mood of the community changed, because we had never faced a pandemic like this in our lifetimes. What we noticed is that people
HERSCHEL ADVICE OFFICE
Established in 1999, the Herschel Advice Office deals with paralegal cases from Sterkspruit and all surrounding villages, including Herschel. It is concerned with paralegal support, labour disputes, and economic empowerment.
DISTRICT: Joe Gqabi District
COVID-19 CASES: From March to the end of October 2020, there were 4,053
cases of COVID-19 reported in the Joe Gqabi District of the Eastern Cape. There
were 105 fatalities.
DIRECTOR: Sizeka Mavumengwana
NUMBER OF STAFF: 2, NUMBER OF VOLUNTEERS: 1
BOARD CHAIR: Philip Shibane
BOARD MEMBERS: Julia Mzamo; Alice Senoamali; Mlungisi Samela; Eunice Dondolo ADDRESS: 42 Van Tonder Street, Sterkspruit
PHONE: 073 350 9759, EMAIL: herschellegal.org@gmail.com
20