Aleph Surf Food Outreach
Covid-19 arrived and gave all of us a giant gut punch this year. No one could really imagine the devastation that it would bring to people all over the world. We all had goals and targets we aimed to reach, places we planned to visit, projects to get off the ground. But Covid-19 had different plans. And we had to stall or readjust ours.
For us at Aleph Surf we had a year planned to create a communal surf space closer to the beach for our J-Bay groms that could service an even wider audience. We had plans to visit an orphanage in Liberia and run a surf camp in Tanzania. But on March 23 our President announced that South Africans will enter into a 'hard lockdown' with all travel and borders closed with immediate effect. South Africans was told to stay at home and not leave their homes for the next 3 weeks. And then the 3 weeks became 5 weeks. And 5 weeks became 2 months. Today we arrived at Day 115.
Most South Africans live and work through an informal economy that depends on day labor workers and the selling of small items on street corners, taxi ranks and sidewalks. Money is made on a daily basis for a daily basis. There are no savings, no investments, no rainy day funds. What I make today I use to feed my family. So you can imagine once the lockdown started to take hold and people were not allowed to go out and work for their daily bread, how fast hunger started to rear its ugly head. The government made many promises to bring food parcels and social grants to the most vulnerable of societies. Very little came of this. For this reason citizens decided to band together and assist their neighbors wherever and however they could. It really was a sign of solidarity. I must commend the members of the J-Bay community who risked a lot to make food parcels happen for our town’s most vulnerable. Many groups stepped up to the plate and made things happen. So stoked.
Our MVP surely has been the international community. We could not have done any of this without your help. Through Groundswell Aid's appeals and promotion they have assisted all of the projects, including Aleph Surf during a very trying time.
Aleph Surf decided to focus on essential food needs for families connected to our programs.
This was a great opportunity to use the asset based community development model that we advocate for. We decided to make use of three community leaders we identified and let them be the link between people and the resource. These three leaders are all Aleph Surf alumni. Who better to know the needs of the people in the townships than the ones living there?
We selected Jimeal, Nancy and Tsungi as our distributors
They made contact with kids and their families who lost income due to the lockdown
They selected the families who needed support in the form of food parcel or vouchers
We got the food and vouchers to the community leaders at a designated spot and time
The community leaders handed out the food and vouchers
Communication was done via WhatsApp connecting the donor, distributor and recipient
Initially we gave funds to the leaders and they went to purchase food and distributed the goods to selected families. But this came with its own set challenges. The risk of getting mugged grew greater each time the leaders came back with groceries. Rumors also started to spread about their houses becoming distribution centres and the risk of break-ins became all too real. We decided to find another strategy, which turned out to be the best.
As Aleph Surf we could buy store vouchers on a card and preload it with R500 a pop. With this the family could buy items THEY really needed; including electricity, paraffin and gas, with which to actually cook their food on. From information we gathered, many families received some form of generic food parcel, but they lacked even the basic means to cook the food on because they ran out of power or gas. With our store voucher they could purchase what they knew they needed.
It also turned out to be way more safe and secure for the leaders to distribute the cards rather than big bags of food.
We continued with the food distribution until early June when a lot of the economy opened up again. Currently we are on advanced level 3 of lockdown.
Through your assistance and help we have been able to directly give 100% of the donated funds for food to 28 families who lost income due to Covid-19.
Aleph Surf purposely did not share any pictures of social media showing photos or videos where food is handed out to people. We recognize that this has been an extremely difficult time for many people who used to earn a living. Covid has taken away dignity and independence. We did not want to exacerbate this situation in any shape or form. We look from the perspective of, “How would I feel in that situation?” That is why we went with community members themselves doing the distribution.
This last few months has been a challenging and frustrating time, but we are also encouraged that this situation created space for community leaders to step up to the plate and make a difference amongst their own neighbor. Many of you had the means the give, they had the willingness to serve, everyone plays a part. This is how we can make a change together.
Thank you to everyone who gave during this time.
God bless you!
P.S. Our next area of focus following the food distribution is to assist family members in paying their kids school fees who have fell on hard times due to Covid.