- The Wynberg community organised a fundraising supper on Women’s Day to support families affected by the recent tornado disaster.
- The event featured entertainment, an auction, and speeches, with all proceeds going towards assisting the 20 households impacted.
- Organisers stressed the need for ongoing community-driven efforts to help these families rebuild and recover.
The caring and concerned neighbourhood of Wynberg and surrounding areas held a fundraising eat and treat supper on Women’s Day (Friday 9 August) at Wynberg High to help families in the aftermath of the Wynberg tornado disaster of last month.
Shihaam Meyer, a social activist and her humanitarian team of organisers, spearheaded the event for the 20 directly affected households.
“The Wynberg Tornado Relief Fundraising eat and treat Supper event kicked off with the media personality, Shafiek Noordien as master of ceremonies or rather programme director for the night, despite the chilly weather. Noordien’s presence throughout the evening is strongly indicative of the media’s extensive support coverage by the printed media such as People’s Post and the community broadcasters such as RADIO 786, Radio VOC, Hilaal TV, since the night of the disaster in Wynberg. After a multi-faith opening ceremony and later the closing prayer where both a Christian prayer conducted by pastor Paul and a Muslim prayer by Imam Hishaam Domingo, an officiating priest at the Park Rd Mosque, a mini doccie was screened showing the magnitude of the actual damages suffered by the 20 families,” says Meyer.
Gifts on auction
These 20 directly affected households as the Tornado Disaster victims cover a much bigger street block footprint than initially expected which includes the following streets – Sussex, Bute, Abby, Eden, Kent and South roads whose families were represented at the Fundraising eat and treat supper as special guests. Immediately, thereafter, the jammed-pack evening programme continued with several entertainment items until the conclusion of the night’s proceedings led by The Young Brothers and Aziza Davids, a solo singer from the Baxter Theatre who sang two songs. Other entertainment offered was by two youth groups, the 21-member Tafallah Drummies and 11-member Western Province Marching Youth Band.
They kept the majority of the crowd seated until closure at 22:15.
The well-known influencer, Yusuf Daniels gave a short motivational talk, but his main presence was hosting a public auction of several items sponsored by local business houses. Ticket holders – with great enthusiasm bid for the corporate gifts on auction as a second fundraiser The main corporate sponsor, the Castletown street-based business house, TOP IT UP, a prepaid airtime and electricity local business which funded some of the event logistics such as the table crockery.
Neighbours
The company’s general manager and spokesperson Hassen Mohamed explained that their organic involvement was that their clients were local shops as outlets of their TOP IT UP products, residents as part of their staff, and the Wynberg neighbours being the patrons of their prepaid products.
The Tornado Disaster Relief humanitarian team, as fund organisers of this fun-filled fundraising supper function wished to extend their gratitude towards the patrons for their sterling, generous support, but wish to alert the community that many more “By community, For the community” fundraising efforts are planned to mitigate against the severe impact of this natural disaster which the affected families are still confronted with.
“The families affected are private property owners without public funding intervention for massive repairs by the government authorities and are responsible for the restoration to normality as directly affected families. In the absence of further govt assistance to these 20 privately owned residences, a call for action would be more community-driven funding relief measures and neighbourhood wide initiatives such as [1] post disaster relief trauma counseling support by community health community based organisations, [2] special capital infrastructure repair funds to be released for rehabilitation of these damaged houses by dedicated Disaster Relief NPO charities; [3] increased community safety and security interventions by the local police, the Wynberg East based City Law Enforcement unit, and the local Wynberg East Neighbourhood Watch whom all need to be on high alert that these affected homes in distress don’t become havens in compounding the social ills already faced by the Wynberg East community at large,” he said. One ticketholder patron, and community heritage activist, Mogamat Kamedien expressed the envisaged hope that both the national building roofing companies with corporate social responsibility programmes and local building material supplies companies as corporate citizens will showcase what they have to offer to this East Wynberg community as residents in this historic urban enclave, Wynberg East is well known for its Gregorian, Edwardian and Victorian style heritage significant vintage homes.
The social active volunteers as members of the Wynberg Ternado Disaster Relief humanitarian committee are Shihaam Meyer, Saait Bester, Insaaf Sambo, Salma Davids, Ruzaigh Bassierand the official spokesperson and official media contact is Shihaam Meyer, who can be reached at 084 494 4357.
