On the weekend of 4 July 2020, Mamosweu Tsoabi, a community member, organiser and activist in the Waterdal area (in Sebokeng, Johannesburg) spoke to Karibu! about some of the recent problems facing the community.
“In Waterdal we are living with different people, including people with albinism. Our challenge is that the breadwinners have lost their work during lockdown and some who used to sell vegetables at the local train station, now that there are no trains in Vaal, they have no other means of hustling”, she said. Mamosweu expressed the difficulties the community of Waterdal has been going through.
Their food garden market is under threat, and the “Waterdal community has to organise sanitary pads for twenty girls, toiletries for four differently-able people, sunscreen (specifically for people with albinism) for three girls”, she said.
It took the Waterdal community a short time to realise that it is only through solidarity that they can get through the difficult times as the challenges are getting worse, as the lockdown deepens. “Waterdal is an old community which still doesn’t have a clinic. We also need hearing aids for a deaf and unemployed person”, said Tsoabi.
The nearest clinic that can be accessed by Waterdal residents is in Sebokeng Zone 7, which is more than 4kms away (and around 45min-1hr’s walk away).
This article was submitted on 6 July 2020. You may republish this article, so long as you credit the authors and Karibu! Online (www.Karibu.org.za), and do not change the text. Please include a link back to the original article.
