To raise public awareness about the plight of streetpeople during the colder months, the Cape Town Central City Improvement District (CCID) has launched its annual “Show you care” winter drive.
The “Show you care” winter drive, run by the CCID’s Social Development department is also aimed at raising awareness about the work carried out by this department which engages with the Central City’s most vulnerable individuals and forms partnerships that will alleviate the CBD’s own challenges.
The services that this team delivers are vital components of any downtown that strives to be vibrant, resilient, tolerant and inclusive. The engagements that the CCID’s social team undertakes aid in assisting street people towards a path of reunification with their families, channelling them towards appropriate rehabilitation or medical care, referring them for a job opportunity or a skills development programme, or even securing them a safe place for the night.
Says Pat Eddy, manager of CCID Social Development: “We promote the ‘Show you care’ message throughout the year as the challenges that our community living on the streets face are a year-round issue. However, during the winter period, we amplify this with our ‘Show you care’ winter drive to help make Cape Town’s cold and wet conditions a little bearable for the most vulnerable in the CBD and surrounding communities.
“As author and political activist, Helen Keller once said: ‘Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much’, we are once again appealing to members of the public to assist by donating generously; this could be either through donations of money or warm clothing, food, toiletries and shoes.”
Tasso Evangelinos, CEO of the CCID, shares Pat’s sentiments: “Pulling together is the only way we can help alleviate the challenges faced by our streetpeople community. I urge individuals and corporates to assist us as well as our partner NGOs during this tough period.
“We are currently awaiting the opening of the City of Cape Town’s much-needed Safe Space pilot project in the Culemborg area which will provide temporary shelter for around 230 homeless people, but we also need to remind our CBD stakeholders that the numbers of people on the streets in and around the Central City is much larger than this, and with other shelter spaces full to capacity, many others will still be out in the cold.”
The donations that the CCID receives are distributed to the organisation’s primary partners in the Central City which include The Homestead, Ons Plek, Youth Solutions Africa, The Carpenter's Shop, Khulisa Social Solutions, Straatwerk, U-turn Homeless Ministries, The Haven, and TB HIV Care.
Many of these NGOs look to assist adults living on the streets with shelter (when it is available), as well as food and social services, while others ensure that children are afforded the necessary care and protection.
“While we encourage donations to be made towards our partners,” says Pat, “this shouldn’t stop individuals from showing they care within their own communities or lending a hand directly to organisations that assist those in need. If each one of us can do our bit to ‘show we care’ towards someone who needs it most, can you imagine the collective impact and difference we can make?”
In addition to collaborating with partner NGOs, among the CCID’s own winter interventions is the publication of a special four-page supplement in the CCID’s quarterly newspaper, City Views, of which 50 000 copies are printed for free distribution throughout the CBD.
Pat further explains: “The supplement is a pull-out-and-keep mini-newspaper called The Tough Times, and provides detailed information on the ‘Show you care’ winter drive as well as on the NGOs offering assistance, and reveals the various easy ways for people to show they care. It will be distributed in the next few weeks at various points throughout the CBD and, for the first time, we’re making an additional 5 000 copies of the supplement available to the publishers of The Big Issue magazine. Not only will this enable the information in the supplement to reach a wider audience but it will also hopefully assist the NGO’s vendors in selling the July issue of the magazine.”
Another important component of the “Show you care” winter drive is the strategic placing of donation bins at various establishments in and around the Central City. Pat encourages organisations who wish to have collection bins at their premises to contact CCID via aziza@capetownccid.org, so that these can be ordered while stocks last.
In addition, for those who would prefer to make a monetary donation, this can easily be done just by SMSing “give” to 38088 (to donate R10), or making a SnapScan donation of any amount of your choosing via a smart phone, just download the free app and scan the code below.
Alternatively, donors can make an EFT payment, the details of which (along with terms and conditions for all donations received) can be found at www.showyoucare.co.za. In addition, CCID “Show you care” posters with the SnapScan code will be placed strategically around the CBD from 18 June onwards to enable members of the public to SnapScan donations right on the street if they wish to.
The “Show you care” winter drive is scheduled to run until September 2018 and more information on the campaign can be found on the Show You Care Facebook page.
Images by Ed Suter and Shanien Rich (CCID)