Winter Hope & Giving Back Responsibly  –  help combat poverty & inequality

Winter in Cape Town is a time in which poverty and homelessness become heightened social issues, because of the extremely harsh weather conditions. At the same time, the annual Mandela Day initiative coincides, taking place this 18 July, helping to bring hope and support to vulnerable communities.

Indigent people in South Africa are an inherent part of the cityscape, with hundreds of thousands of people homeless and living on the streets.

It is well-known that cash handouts are not a good solution for supporting people living on the streets  –  as these often serve to fuel the problem by funding addiction and other negative or self-perpetuating behaviour.

However, most of us would like to help in some way to combat poverty and inequality. For this reason, it’s important to work with known NGOs, nonprofits or charities, who have built social infrastructures and relationships that have longevity.

MES Cape Town - Mould, Empower, Serve

Mould, Empower, Serve  –  how the City Improvement Districts are working with MES

MES Cape Town is a key partner in the mission to sustainably rehome the homeless across various City Improvement Districts. Their extensive network of outreach and social relief programs provides the vital reach and resources our CID needs. Additionally, their responsive help desk is always available to assist with the immediate and short-term needs of the homeless and unemployed community.

We work closely with MES to identify individuals for casual labour on specific projects. Their team actively scouts promising candidates, placing them with us each week on a probationary basis as one of our on-the-ground workers, fondly known as our “Green Ants”. For those who show dedication, we offer pathways for them to become supervisors and advance their training, making them valuable members of our workforce in a way that allows us to support their growth.

Woodstock Improvement District 2022

To ensure the funds generated through our partnership are used effectively, we pay stipends directly to MES, which helps cover their living expenses sustainably throughout their stay.

Winter Hope 2024

MES is running a WinterHope campaign until the end of July, in a mission to spread hope and warmth this winter, by gathering essential items such as warm clothing, blankets, and nourishing food supplies.

Visit MES @mouldempowerserve on Facebook to see causes near you to support this winter.

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Helping the homeless to build a sustainable future

Mahatma Gandhi famously said, “The true measure of any society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members.” As South Africans, we are sometimes desensitised to the poverty that permeates our ordinary lives. We become used to the sight of the radical impact our ever-expanding gap between the haves and have-nots creates. While most of us would like to help, many people are uneducated on the extraordinarily complex issues that create and sustain homelessness. 

Due to our own basic understanding of these ever-evolving issues, it makes a greater difference when we partner with and give back to organisations equipped with the infrastructure, skill and experience to combat homelessness and help in a sustainable way.

“Handouts of cash given to desperate – often mentally ill people – add fuel to the same addictions that put them on the streets. Institutions such as our partners at MES have spent decades building, perfecting and maintaining the social infrastructure to efficiently maximise the impact of our donations, and the results are inarguable,” says Jaco Wessels, COO of our appointed urban management company, Geocentric.  

Here are our top recommendations of non-profit organisations active in 2022 and how to  contribute to their vision responsibly

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Climate action, Cape Town and you – living a more sustainable life

While Spring makes us think “green”, it’s not all spring flowers and baby birds that are in the air. Climate change and its proactive counterpart, Climate Action, is on the world’s collective consciousness with COP26 beginning on 31 October in Glasgow, culminating in this year’s Climate Action Day on 4 November and millions of people across the world who will be out marching for climate justice on Saturday 6 November. Last month Global Day of Climate Action on 25 September, held by Fridays for Future, saw 3500 towns and cities get involved, and this month is also Youth Climate Action Day on 23 October.

But let’s take a step back…

What is Climate Change?

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Our Facade Improvement Programme – a lick of paint towards building a better future

Woodstock Exchange

Bestselling entrepreneurial author Jim Rohn once said, “Whatever good things we build end up building us”. In Woodstock, our streets are no utopia, but at Woodstock Improvement District we are committed to working collaboratively to improve our community. We believe that improvement is contagious – which is why we have initiated Our Facade Improvement Programme (FIP). The FIP is specifically designed to encourage businesses, like yours, to invest in the exterior functionality and curb appeal of your premises while providing peace of mind that we at the WID are working to protect your property from vandalism and malicious degradation. 

The FIP is intended to be the first step on the investment journey that we walk together – as business owners, community members, municipal bodies and the Woodstock Improvement District – to repair the urban decay in our surroundings. Ultimately, we work towards creating a healthy urban environment to improve local socio-economic circumstances, the safety of our population and the quality of life for all our inhabitants.  

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Winter in Cape Town can be hazardous: Here’s how to take action and contribute

Winter in Cape Town is known to be a chilly and wet affair. For those who are not prepared, the months of June and July can be brutal in the Western Cape. Heavy rains may bring flooding and water damage, while fewer hours of daily sunlight and colder temperatures each have a variety of knock-on effects, including increases in crime, accidents, property damage and costly energy use. 

Woodstock exchange, dark clouds, Devils Peak, Cape Town

WID, the City of Cape Town and Provincial Government are all taking action to reduce repercussions as far as possible in various winter preparedness programmes.

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Give responsibly: Cape Town non-profit organisations you can support in 2021

Streetscapes
Nazeema Jacobs (left) and Kaylin Mrbral work at the Streetscapes urban gardening project. Jacobs was living on the street but is now staying with her mother. Jacobs completed matric and wants to study home-based nursing. “I love looking after old people,” she said. The only thing keeping her back is a lack of funds. Source: Groundup

Many of us want to give back to society by helping those in need. But in most cases, handouts in the form of cash given to people begging is more often used to fuel addictions and other destructive ends rather than ultimately helping the individual to feed, clothe or house themselves or their family. There are many good organisations in Woodstock, Cape Town and surrounds, such as shelters, charities, NGO’s and NPO‘s who have the necessary infrastructure to insure people’s donations go to good use, creating support in the form of feeding, housing, social support, and other forms of well being.

Here we list some non-profit organisations below that are active now in 2021 and contributing meaningfully to their various areas of focus. Help them to do great work and give responsibly.

[View 2022 update here]

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The effects of homelessness on our city

Homelessness in Cape Town

The Table Mountain fires that have just begun to be contained have sparked debate in Cape Town once again around homelessness. On Sunday 18 April, the day that the fires began, reports that Table Mountain National Park “surmised that the origin of the fire is from a vacated vagrant fire” were broadcast in the news. However, forensic expert investigating the fires David Klatzow disagrees, saying he is “not convinced” a vagrant is behind the Table Mountain blaze. He is asking for further investigations into both SANPark’s and UCT’s roles in possible negligence that led to the fires getting out of control in the height of fire season when measures should be taken to prevent the spread of fires that do occur.

It is not hard to believe that there is a bigger picture to consider and that placing the blame on a “vagrant” as an easy scapegoat is too simple an answer.

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Illegal dumping: how you can play your part

Illegal Dumping WID

It costs the City R350-million every year to clean up illegal dumping. Cleaning up illegally dumped waste is about 20 times more expensive than collecting it from individual wheelie bins, as specialised equipment, including front-end loaders, must be hired to remove the waste. That’s money that could be better used in beautifying and upgrading our shared, public spaces  –  rather than maintaining the status quo.

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How easy is it really to work from home?

work from home WID

According to Remote Working in South Africa 2020, a study conducted among 400 enterprises by World Wide Worx for Cisco, the shift to remote working has led to improved productivity for 29% of organisations.

Many employees have discovered numerous advantages from working at home during the Covid-19 pandemic, but that does not mean we should ignore the challenges. 

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Health & Wellness this October

Health & Wellness this October

We are smashing all stigmas! Going to therapy is cool, talking about your fears and anxieties is encouraged, seeking help and empowering yourself and others about mental illnesses are all no longer taboo. And even if you do not suffer from mental illness, overall wellness and happiness is important too with self-care being a buzzword.

October has been declared Mental Health Awareness month and as we celebrate National Nutrition week this week, we will look at various wellness centres in and around Woodstock – from health stores, yoga schools, urban gardens, spas, meditation centres as well stockists of healthy food that’s good for the body.

As many as one in six South Africans suffer from anxiety, depression or substance-use problems (and this does not include more serious conditions such as bipolar disorder or schizophrenia), according to statistics released by the South African Depression and Anxiety Group (SADAG). Cassey Chambers, Operations Director at SADAG says that because “people don’t know where to go to get help, or are too scared to seek it, the stats we have are still not a true reflection of what is actually happening on the ground.”  

Stigmas surrounding mental health pose a major stumbling block when it comes to treating the disease in South Africa, explains Chambers. There is still the perception that someone with a mental illness is crazy, dangerous or weak. Because there is often an absence of physical symptoms with mental illness, it is considered ‘not real’, or a figment of the imagination.”

Begin your journey of self-care with the list of places we have put together for you here.

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