Page 21 - Rural Voice III - Responding to a Pandemic
P. 21

 Herschel food distribution
became angry being locked in one place, unable to visit family and attend gatherings, funerals, stokvels or church in large numbers. Everything was stuck.
Our first case of gender-based violence was caused by this lockdown. A 33-year-old man forced paraffin down the throat of his elderly mother, because she refused to give him her SASSA card. Members of the community took the old lady to hospital. We visited her and solved the problem by calling the younger sister of the elderly woman to take the SASSA card and buy groceries for the family.
There was another case during lockdown in June 2020, in which three old ladies were shot dead by their nephew, who accused them of witchcraft. The young man handed himself over to the police. We organised a protest march against the murders with an organisation called Women’s Link. We had placards saying, ‘Stop Gender-Based Violence’. We sanitised our hands and kept our social distance during the march.
projecTs and programmes in response To The covid-19 pandemic
In March 2020 – two days before the lockdown – SCAT provided us with R10,000, which we used to buy soap. We went to churches and community halls to educate people about COVID-19. Some people were confused. I came across women who were afraid, because they did not know if their river water had corona or cholera. I realised I had to educate the community about the difference. I printed some pamphlets in their language with pictures, and invited them to an open space for education.
The biggest challenges in Herschel are gender-based violence and anger due to unemployment, which we experienced when we distributed food parcels. We delivered food to families in 65 villages from April to June 2020, to child-headed households and those who didn’t receive SASSA grants, were unemployed, and had no income. When we reached the villages, people were fighting, because everybody was hungry. For example, at Dibinkonzo, we had to take the food back to our office, because there was a physical fight and we were chased away.
Village communities assisted us to select the neediest households. We also engaged with the Department of Health clinic to give us the addresses of people who had chronic illnesses and compromised immune systems, and child-headed families. Before we went
Food parcels distributed
164
COVID grant funding given to LDA’s
R 50 000
RURAL VOICE III: RESPONDING TO A PANDEMIC
21





















































































   19   20   21   22   23