Pretoria – A woman and her teenage son have received a house in an initiative by government and the private sector as part of Mandela Day.
The handover, which was attended by the Gauteng MEC for Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs and Human Settlements, Paul Mashatile, was done in partnership with HOT 91.9 FM community radio station and BriDev Projects on Monday.
Julia Naila, 48, who works as a domestic worker, has been living in Ebumnandi informal settlement for the past 16 years. She was given a house in the affluent Witpoortjie Residential Estate.
“Naila and her son Sihle,16, until today lived in a one bedroom shack without electricity, running water or a toilet. Sihle has kidney failure and asthma and often requires dialysis, which should be performed in a highly hygienic and sterile environment,” said MEC Mashatile.
He said the provision of housing remained a problem in Gauteng because of in-migration.
“We have decided to have mixed development to accommodate different people from those who need RDP, rental stock, bonded houses and those who need serviced land and can build for themselves,” said MEC Mashatile.
He said government welcomed initiatives in which people help and that their contribution should never be underestimated as they have an impact, even if it is one family.
“We need to do more as government but if people help, it goes a long way,” he said.
MEC Mashatile said his department was going to reopen its customer care centre so that people can approach government with ideas that can assist in dealing with the housing backlog.
Hayley Owen Watters, from Wingz of Change organisation, said HOT 91.9 FM appealed to people to donate all the material that can be used to build a house. Wingz of Change is the charity arm of HOT 91.9 FM.
“We then asked listeners to nominate an individual that needed a house and why they needed a house and we chose Julia out of the hundreds of people nominated,” she said.
Mark Holdsworth of Powerman said his company donated an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) so that the house can have an interrupted power supply, even when there is power failure.
MEC Mashatile also visited 20 families in Alexandra and gave them food parcels and blankets as part of Mandela Day celebrations. – SAnews.gov.za
