Zeenat Isaacs, chairwoman and co-founder of Supporting Mentorship through Art (S.M-ART), Harmony Village
Since the Covid-19 period hit, S.M-ART has distributed more than 1 000 food relief packages, vouchers and loaves of bread weekly.
S.M-ART provided and will continue to provide cooked meals for the communities in need, depending on supplies. We intend to serve three meals a day to those on our database.
We mainly focus on the elderly, young children and the disabled.
However, we do try to assist as many in need as possible.
This global pandemic affects those with weakened immune systems and those with pre-existing conditions.
Our vulnerable groups have been falling prey. All of them do not have masks, gloves, toiletries let alone a warm blanket or something to eat with winter coming up.
It is also obvious that when your nutritional needs are not met this in effect will lower your immunity and you would be more prone to catching Covid-19.
The Western Cape has reported the most Covid-19 infections and Mitchell’s Plain is high on the list in the province.
We urge the public to please do what you can to assist because together we can and will get through this.
We are grateful for being able to warm the hearts and aid the most vulnerable members of our community.
S.M-ART mainly assists the community of Mitchell’s Plain, due to a lack of resources.
Putting the food relief packages together is both a blessing and salutation for our team.
We work day and night to pack, distribute, uplift and impact the impoverished in their time of need – in a time when hope is so drastically needed as well as human dignity, which should always be maintained.
We followed strict good clinical practice (GCP) and human subject protection (HSP) guidelines.
We aspire to continue to do this for all those in need across any given barrier.
Please contact us if you would like to donate any food packages, winter clothing, blankets and toiletries to our daily causes.
We are urgently in need of extra supplies, food, toiletries, bedding and cleaning materials for the more 3 000 recipients in need on our database.
So far all of the
S.M-ART handouts were generated from the income of our founding members to create these packages.
However, we are running out of food supplies and our beneficiaries are in need of food, toiletries and bedding as winter approaches.
So many people are being arrested for being hungry and trying to survive.
If you have a Woolworths MySchool card, choose S.M-ART as a beneficiary so we can aid those in need.
For more information and or to donate call, text co-founder Rizah Potgieter, from Westridge, on 074 074 3377, email preficks@gmail.com or me on 074 256 3243.
The core role of S.M-ART when it started in May last year was to target impoverished communities over a broad spectrum by targeting youth, empowering and impacting their lives by keeping them away from unsavoury situations on the streets and teaching them skills, which will help them be self-sustainable, hence eradicating poverty (“Pupils taught SMART goal-setting”, Plainsman, May 15, 2019).
Their skills set include dance, graffiti, all art forms, rap, mechanics and poetry.