Feeback to donors from Jikeleza fundraising campaign

Dear friends

Your response to Jikeleza Dance's fundraising appeal has been fantastic. It has given the people working on the ground in very challenging circumstances a real lift to know that people care enough to give.

 

News from Hout Bay, where Jikeleza works, in the last week has been pretty dispiriting. Torrential rains and fierce, freezing gales swept up from the southern Atlantic depositing over two and a half inches of rain in 24 hours on the rich and poor of Hout Bay alike.

 

As you can imagine, torrential rain on the steep slopes of Imizamo Yethu township soon leads to floods of water and raw sewage. Shacks had to be abandoned. Tragically a young woman was found dead outside the Standard Bank in Hout Bay. It is believed she died from hypothermia.

 

Levels of violent crime show no signs of abating. In the course of two nights two spaza shops (informal corner stores) in Imizamo Yethu were held up by armed robbers. In one shop a bystander was shot three times.

 

Sexual violence remains an ever present danger. In the last three months Marilyn Okkers, Jikeleza Dance Project Co-ordinator reports,

 

One of our boys was raped in the community by someone he knows; an older man who apparently lures kids with sweets and other gifts. And one of the girls was abused by her dad so the mother took off with the children to her sister and the dad is threatening to kill… So we have been with police , social workers and siblings that are frantic and do not want to live at home.

 

So your donations have been truly appreciated.

 

Many thanks again and thank you for your forbearance. If you have any feedback it would be much appreciated.

 

I've attached a photo I took of Hout Bay a year and a half ago. It is hard to believe that in the midst of such stunning beauty...

 

Very best wishes