FREE OPTIONS
MES Meal Vouchers
Sun Mar 12, 07:00 - Sun Dec 31, 12:00
Taaibosch Camp Site
ABOUT
Big changes at the Durbanville Soup Kitchen
André van Wyk
For nearly twenty years churches in Durbanville have fed and cared for the needs of homeless people in the Durbanville-area. With Lee Sives and the Jesus Can project we were able to help more than 30 people to get off the streets and reintegrate back into society, some reunited with their families. More recently the churches decided to take hands with MES (www.mes.org.za). For the past 8 years MES (Mould, Empower, Serve) has been actively working with the homeless and destitute community in the Bellville and Parow, and more recently in Brackenfell. The MES vision is to change the heart of the city by empowering these individuals to have access to a number of holistic services which could assist them to become sustainable members of our community and society. MES services include: outreach and social relief, spiritual enrichment, GROW (a job rehabilitation programme), social work services, occupational therapy, residential care and training (which includes job placement).
Lilly Franks (Branch Manager, MES Cape Town)
Offering a meal to a person on the streets is one of the most basic needs that can be addressed. Receiving a decent meal offers dignity to our homeless community and can put them one step closer to change. Part of the MES success is our GROW job rehabilitation programme as it alleviates poverty and reduces aggressive begging by offering an honest day’s work. Duties include the sweeping of streets, removing weeds, gardening services, car guards, distribution of pamphlets, etc. Many businesses and churches are already supporting the GROW concept because it works. Most of the MES clients receiving meal vouchers are referred to our GROW programme which works alongside our social workers, occupational therapist and the skills training department.
André van Wyk
MES is in partnership with the D4J-churches (Durbanville 4 Jesus) at the soup kitchen in Durbanville. They assist with the social work services and the GROW programme for this area. There has been concern however, as the homeless have not been engaging in the programmes as much as was hoped. One of the reasons can be that they are receiving the meals for free and have no reason to get involved in the programmes like GROW. Another reason for this is that the Durbanville community still give a lot of cash and other hand outs to the street people. There has been better participation in the programmes from street people in the other suburbs where the meals only gets served to people that have a meal voucher or pay R5 and where the communities have decreased their hand outs and have started to rather give out meal vouchers.
After some consideration, it has been decided to change the Durbanville soup kitchen into a Community Kitchen on Monday, 13 March 2017. People that want a meal will have to give a voucher or pay R5. New meal voucher booklets will be made available in the community and we would like to encourage people to rather steer away from giving out cash to the homeless people living in our area.
The meal voucher system is part of the responsible giving campaign that was initiated by the City of Cape Town. The vouchers can be handed out to any street person, or to people standing at the robots, and they can also be sponsored in order for MES to hand them out to people that have been accessed by the social auxiliary worker. The vouchers can be used at any of the three available kitchens – Durbanville, Bellville and Brackenfell. With these vouchers the homeless can receive their meals and become more aware of the services offered by MES. Currently there is a social auxiliary worker available 3 days a week in Durbanville, but MES and the D4J churches are looking for support so that the services can be made available 5 days per week.
One meal voucher costs R5 and a booklet R50 (10 vouchers per booklet). All the profit made from the selling of the tickets will be used for the services to street people in Durbanville. Should you be interested in purchasing the vouchers, supporting any of the services, or sponsoring a GROW team, please contact MES at 021 949 8736 or André van Wyk at 021 975 6370.
The vouchers will be available at the MES offices at 3 Davies Street, Bellville and also at the following churches in Durbanville:
- Durbanville Baptist Church, 28 Durbanville Avenue, 021-976 1308
- Durbanville Presbyterian Church, Louw St & Hafele St, 021-976 3044
- Durbanville Methodist Church, Bowlers Ave, 021-976 0598
- Durbanville Catholic Church, The Crescent, 021-976 1550
- NG Durbanville, 10 Church street, 021-975 6370
- NG Durbanville-Bergsig, Bolandstreet, 021 -976 4106
- Oakhill, 64 Verdi Boulevard, 021-979 2803
- El Shaddai Christian Church, Lord’s Walk, 021-975 1983
- Community Family Church, 083 381 4856
- Goedemoed Baptist Church, Goedemoed street, 021-976 0778
- Doxa Deo, Steenbok Street, Langeberg Ridge, 021-987 1275
MES and the D4J churches will keep the community up to date with progress, and we are trying to make the vouchers more easily accessible to members in the community. There is a bar code on the booklets and we plan to get retailers involved in the selling of the booklets.
We would like to encourage the community to also make opportunities available for the GROW teams, e.g. cleaning of yards or parking areas, gardening, etc.
Together we can indeed “change the heart of our city”!