In celebrating Women’s Month, the CCID spoke to female leaders in government, business and civic society in the Central City. We published some of their comments in the Winter 2016 issue of City Views. Here is a Q&A with Jesse Laitinen, manager of strategic partnerships at Khulisa Social Solutions. Stay tuned throughout August to meet more wonder women of the Cape Town CBD.
How long have you been doing the kind of work you do and why do you do it?
I’ve been in development since 1997 – first as a volunteer in a Joburg CBD-based NGO, SANGONeT, then working for an agency granting funds to NGOs in four Southern African countries for 15 years. The last six years I’ve worked with Khulisa. Being able to be part of making a difference in another person’s life is the most rewarding feeling; it gives clear purpose and meaning to all our efforts. I also feel blessed to have gotten to know all the Cape Town angels: ordinary citizens, NGO colleagues and business owners who choose to care, be compassionate and assist those in need.
What is the most challenging part of what you do?
Coming face to face with the ugliest possible form of inequality in Cape Town. We in the middle class are so far detached from the realities on the street – loss of citizenship and having to survive in a hostile nation very different from the one we inhabit. It is hard to justify how our very basic human actions – sitting, sleeping, eating, going to the toilet – are outlawed for some people.
What do you still want to see happen in the CBD that would assist Khulisa Social Solutions?
More love, more compassion, more working together as a collective in reimagining a more humane world.
What would you want the public to really understand about what it is you do?
Pressing social problems can’t be policed away. A society willing to help the homeless results in the willingness of the homeless to help themselves. Idleness is demoralising. We partner with businesses, government and citizens to create opportunities for the homeless to be socially useful and thereby receive social recognition and pride.
What is it about the Cape Town CBD that you enjoy?
Its people: the homeless, the business owners, the cleaners, the activists, the artists. I spend my day running around town and have made so many friends that walking in town is like coming home.
If you had a lunch hour free to yourself, how would you spend it in the CBD?
I would sit on the lawn of The Company’ Garden sharing a cup of coffee with the Dalai Lama!
Khulisa Social Solutions
3rd floor, Norlen House, 17 Buitenkant St
http://khulisa.org.za
021 465 6112