South Point has supported Africa’s largest disaster response NGO of African origin, Gift Of The Givers, in its provision of food relief to Cape Town-based students who’ve not been able to vacate their residences during the 5-week national lockdown as ordered by President Cyril Ramaphosa, effective from 26 March 2020.
The student food distribution scheme is a joint initiative between Gift Of The Givers and South Point. Says South Point CEO, Ndumiso Davidson, “The COVID-19 pandemic is a global emergency of unprecedented scale, requiring an escalation of extraordinary interventions, particularly so in South Africa, where we’ve not dealt with a crisis of this magnitude since the dawn of our young democracy.
Following university instructions to vacate, the vast majority of our students were able to vacate their residences ahead of the lockdown, joining their families. However, not all were in a position to do so. As South Point’s business is deemed non-essential, with the vast majority of our team working remotely and our normal support structures stretched, this helping hand is very welcome and needed to be supported.”
On Tuesday and Wednesday, 28 and 29 April 2020, food essentials were distributed to nearly 350 Cape Town-based students who’ve been unable to return to their homes. Says Davidson, “The food distribution programme is coordinated by Gift Of The Givers and South Point, in an effort to support students. We’ve endeavoured to provide a safety net, contributing emergency funds to ensure that all of our remaining students have been able to benefit from this humanitarian aid.
We thank Gift Of The Givers for delivering much-needed food support for our students, and are pleased that we’ve been able to assist with this noble effort. It’s also important to thank our small but dedicated and hard-working South Point team who’ve remained behind during the lockdown, providing their time and energy to assist with distribution to our students.
We look forward to returning to some semblance of normality, the pace of which will be guided by the actions and cooperation of all South Africans adhering to Government’s appeal to comply with its lockdown strategy.”
(Ends).
