The Stellenbosch municipality is working to make a difference in the lives of the homeless people that live in their community by giving out coupons.
Stellenbosch, South Africa – Yesterday we shared the news that the Stellenbosch Municipality would be teaming up with a number of organisations to offer coupons for the homeless. The project was launched this morning and this is how to get involved.
The project was soft launched in January and sold a successful 800 coupons. So they know it will work well going forward officially. The municipality has teamed up with various organisations to make their efforts go further.
‘Destitute people living on the street are a universal concern and a challenge that is not unique to Stellenbosch. Although there are many organisations that try to assist, isolated efforts can only go so far due to limited resources.’
That is why municipality stepped up bringing various stakeholders together to combine resources. This creates a project that provides a more holistic approach to assisting homeless people on a more sustainable basis.
‘The Stellenbosch, Give Responsibly campaign is a culmination of months of talks and cooperation between various non-governmental organisations, stakeholders and the Municipality. It started with a summit, initiated by Mayor van Deventer, in August 2018.’
This project is focussed on encouraging residents, visitors and students to make responsible choices when giving to street people.
Research has shown that simply giving money keeps people on the street, because it is often financially rewarding for them. The collective aim of this project is to provide our destitute people with the necessary resources to survive, but also to assist them to access social and government services. The ultimate goal is to reincorporate them into society.
The system works as follow:
- You purchase a coupon for R10 at any of the participating retailers where the Give Responsibly poster is displayed;
- You write the person’s name, the person for who the coupon is intended, on the coupon (to prevent reselling) and select one of the services (a plate of food, a blanket or a night in the shelter) on the coupon.
- The recipient then goes to the chosen organisation to trade the coupon for services.
The collaboration includes Straatlig, Stellenbosch Night Shelter and the University of Stellenbosch with support from Feeding in Action. They will also look into possibly assisting with the gathering of important data and providing it to the Municipality. This will help them with future initiatives to assist people living on the streets.
‘We encourage all residents, students and visitors to support this initiative. The coupons are available from several outlets in Stellenbosch *. We are dedicated to working together and addressing the challenge of street people in a sustainable and positive way.
As the program grows, we will be speaking to more and more local businesses and restaurants so that we can further increase the distribution network, making the coupons even more easily accessible.’
The Mayor ended off her address at the launch with the famous quote by Ronald Reagan:
“We can’t help everyone, but everyone can help someone.”
She continued “by supporting this initiative, you will be helping us to help those in need. Make a big change with your small change and support the Stellenbosch, Give Responsibly Campaign!”
*List of outlets:
- Tony’s Barber;
- PostNet (Plein Street and Andringa Street);
- Cash Crusaders, iThemba Curious;
- Super Spar (Boord);
- Kwik Spar (Neelsie);
- BP petrol station (Merriman Street and Dorp Street)
- Moeder Gemeente;
- NG Kerk Stellenbosch Wes and Welgelegen,
- Joshua Generation,
- Kruiskerk
- Christ Church
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