Catering to the basic needs of the community with compassion

By: N.S.D
It is not every day that you meet a young person who, when they identify a problem in their community, takes charge and tries to solve it instead of waiting on the government to come to the rescue. Activators are driving real change and showing their influence in their respective communities. What a rare and admirable thing it is, to be an advocate for change. Meet Kamogelo Thomas Themba as he takes us through his story of influence.
“We have taken the role of a mediator between the community and relevant stakeholders to ensure collaboration with necessary initiatives depending on the problem at hand to improve the livelihoods in our community”, says Themba as he tries to explain what his organisation, Compassion Foundation, does.
This 2019 Activator and founder of Compassion Foundation is a young social entrepreneur who- together with his peers- saw a need in their community of Attridgeville in Pretoria west, and they took the decision to give back by being part of the solution. “Our beneficiaries are the people in our community, this include the elderly, less privileged households and school leaners”, explains Themba.
Compassion Foundation- NPO 233-164 is organisation that was founded and is driven by a group of young individuals that exist to cater to the basic needs of their community. Their main objectives are to offer services that tackle the socio-economic factors that are faced by the people in communities that they live it. They offer and facilitate services that deal with creating awareness on issues relating to health and educational development. They also identify problems that have to do with access to basic human rights and needs- because everyone deserves to have their human rights respected and their dignity preserved. “We identify families in the community that are less privileged and are in need of assistance when it comes to dealing with their basic needs and we offer them assistance by seeking and getting them in contact with the relevant people to receive help. We also help by seeking donors to help by means of donations and sponsors”, continues Themba.
Their beneficiaries are the people in their community- this includes the elderly, the less privileged households and school leaners. They have partnered with local organisations such as the Ganzankulu Clinic and Pheli information hub. They are also working together with the local councillor, and the young people in their community volunteer from time to time.
“We identified that the community is facing a lot of socio-economic factors and saw the need for us to start an organization that was going to help them deal with these factors. This is our way of giving back to the community”, explains Themba.
So far, they have managed to establish a food and clothes parcel initiative. The young people who volunteer for the organisation help to look for donors that donate clothes, educational materials, sanitary towels and food parcels. They have been successful at this initiative and have been able to provide parcels to the community on a monthly basis. “We have managed to reach out to a lot of families”, says Themba.
“We are a small organization that is currently running on a self-funding budget. We need assistance in getting exposure to grow and also financial assistance for office stationery and the organization’s branding”, adds Themba as he explains how other Activators can be part of the initiative.

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