Gift of the Givers starts food programme in Butterworth village where desperate mom killed herself and her children

“While Gift of the Givers was reminiscing on 31 years of service on 6 August with delivery to millions of people in 45 countries, the tragic news came of a gruesome find in Tholeni village, Butterworth, on that very anniversary,” the organisation’s Ali Sablay said after a visit to Tholeni on Monday.

“What degree of desperation drives a mother with natural instincts of nurturing, survival, compassion and love to take the lives of something so precious, so divine, her own flesh and blood, born from her very being? By all accounts the feedback from those in the know in the SAPS, Department of Social Development, community leaders and communities, the causative factor is hunger, and tragically, they say, this is not an isolated incident,” he said.

Read more in Daily Maverick: Butterworth mom desperately cried for help before family murders, suicide – Social Development MEC

Shortly after the bodies were discovered on Sunday, 6 August, Gift of the Givers founder Dr Imtiaz Sooliman wrote that while corporate SA has been generous, a larger percentage of the corporate social investment budget must be dedicated to hunger alleviation. 

“Feeding another child or adult is a test of our humanity. This is not a government, corporate or high-earner responsibility, but a collective responsibility of all South Africans with whatever excess we have to share. Creating apprenticeships and employment for youth, offering them a decent stipend, would significantly contribute to reducing hunger in each household by a number of seven,” he wrote. 

Sablay said that during the organisation’s visit to the area on Monday, the team found child-headed households who had had no food for the past two days and an old lady cooking her last grain of food. Hunger, desperation, despair and unemployment were rife, and there was a lack of opportunities. The team also found many undocumented children.

Read more in Daily Maverick: Seven children starve to death, others fight for their lives while malnutrition ravages Eastern Cape

Sablay added that Gift of the Givers teams brought abundant supplies of food to initiate soup kitchens for instant satiety of desperately hungry men, women and children. 

He said they would continue their work on Tuesday with the Department of Health and Social Development and had alerted Home Affairs to register the children so they can receive some form of social support. 

“Community food gardens would provide sustainability, but a lack of water is the limiting factor. Gift of the Givers will support the various villages as best we can. Another self-inflicted death through hunger is an indictment on our nation as a whole,” he said.

“This intervention reminds us of our intervention several years ago in the villages surrounding Verdwaal in the North West where children died from starvation directly. Gift of the Givers teams entered the villages and found horrific levels of hunger,” Sablay said.

Corene Conradie, also from Gift of the Givers, said a local herdsman pointed them to a village where a family was living in dire circumstances. 

“Our teams entered the mud home where we found a gogo on the floor. She was cutting cabbage for her and her four grandchildren. It was the last food in the house. She told us that she will go beg for food again today (Tuesday),” Conradie said.

She said the grandmother receives a social grant, but because of high food prices, it does not last until the next payment date. 

“When we stocked her house with food she was in shock,” Conradie said.

“‘God bless you,’ she cried.”

SRD grant must reach those in need