Child headed families and orphans affected by Covid-19

Christinah Mogobye

Sefikile village

Moses Kotane Local Municipality

28 Feb 2021

My heart bleeds for such families. While we fend for ourselves, staying safe and obeying Covid-19 rules, there are kids who suffer in our community. When lockdown started, food parcels were distributed to certain families (I wouldn’t say needy families because there were unfair incidents where greedy people pushed to get them even though they knew they were meant for needy families) but those families some of them did not receive them. It’s painful and unfair to them.

What happened to that kind of donation? Has love towards our communities gone cold? Do orphans not matter anymore? What do we do as activists to mitigate their situation? It is now an outcall as activists and we need to answer it by stepping in and assist. I have a few lists of such families and talked to the local tuckshop owner who promised to look into the matter and see how he can assist. Their health could be at risk because if they can’t afford to buy bread, how can they really afford to buy soap to wash their hands regularly as it states in one of the Covid-19 tips? I love my community, I could not sleep not eat for days, wondering how those families are coping. My questions were, “have they eaten, did they manage to bathe, are they sleeping comfortably, are they safe? Let us see how we can help vulnerable children in our communities and needy families. At least sanitary towels are distributed in schools but they also need food, love, care and good health.