A fire raged through the informal settlement of Khayelitsha leaving 4000 people displaced but South Africans are coming to their rescue.
Tumi Sole, founder of registered non-profit organisation, Country Duty has been in the forefront of galvanizing support together with his team for affected families both in Khayelitsha and Philipi after a devastating fire claimed one life and left nearly 4000 individuals displaced.
Responding to a call to action by Country Duty, Lungile Ngidi (19) was inspired to support the people of Khayelitsha by creating a campaign on donations based crowdfunding platform, BackaBuddy to uplift the community.
“I was inspired by news reports which were covering this tragedy, one distraught person who had lost everything they own in the fire. This disaster really pulled on my heartstrings and the number of people affected were too many to ignore, so I felt like I had to do something about it.” – says Ngidi
The campaign plans to put together food parcels for those affected by the fires. It went live on the 23rdof October and has thus far raised R 25 653.98 generous donors.
“The food parcels that Country Duty are putting together are estimated to cost about R120 each, we hope the public will support our BackaBuddy campaign so we can, in some small way, improve the situation. You don’t have to be personally affected by an event in order to try to help. As humans it’s in our nature to feel empathy and want to help others. That’s what Ubuntu is about.” – says Ngidi
“Having been raised in an informal settlement, I understand the difficulties that the affected people face and could not stand idle and wait for people to take action.” – says Sole
With the total raised so far, 213 food parcels can be made up for the families rebuilding thier lives.
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