Holding up the sky

“Helping the community is one of my passions. I couldn’t just look at the challenges without doing anything,” says Thandi Khanyile who started Thy Kingdom Care in 2013 in Evaton, a township south of Johannesburg. “I used to assist the community with my salary because there was nothing happening.” Thandi and her team now offer afterschool support, literacy education, skills development and nutritious meals to orphaned and vulnerable children and their families. Thandi says:

Community based organisations are very important as they are close to the community; they know, they understand the challenges and the needs of the community.

On the other side of Johannesburg is Rophe Community Services, founded in 2001 by Carole Mdluli who mobilised retired nurses and volunteers to offer care for AIDS patients. “There was no solution for HIV and AIDS and there was no proper counselling and no treatment at that time.” Carole oversees the counselling and health outreach work that Rophe does.

Community based organizations are important because they increase awareness and knowledge about problems in the community and encourage adherence to treatment which suppresses viral load. They assist in terms of making sure that people access primary health care like we are doing, and preventative programs such as issuing condoms and PrEP.

In Khayelitsha on the windswept Cape Flats, Buhlebenkosi Msipha set up Umthombo Wempilo to address the issues caused by youth disengagement. “We wanted to invoke a new change in our community. We saw a lot of dropouts and there was this phenomenon of young people that will fight.”

Community organisations, as local advocates, play a crucial role in case identification, raising awareness, and ensuring accessible healthcare. According to Buhlebenkosi, community organisations are the lifeblood of the community:

It plays the role of catalyst in bringing the services closer to the people in the community. People in the community trust organizations more because they are used to seeing us.

These are just three of the thousands of community organisations providing essential services in every corner of South Africa. Each of these organisations has a story to tell of a critical community issue that needed to be addressed, of volunteers and visionaries who stepped in to fill gaps in service delivery, of dedicated staff risking their safety to serve their communities. People like Thandi, Carole and Buhlebenkosi are holding up the sky in our communities.

Organisations have played a critical part in South Africa’s HIV response, working with government, donors and scientists to bring testing, treatment and support to 7.8 million people living with HIV. The progress has been undeniable: life expectancy has surged from 54 years in 2006 to over 65 in 2017, driving economic growth as more people lead productive lives.

During these times of funding cuts and budget constraints, we cannot leave these organisations to flounder. Disruption to community services could undo all the progress we have made and leave us with a landscape devoid of the structures that understand and support communities the best.

This World NGO Day, it is more important than ever to recognise, support and advocate for the role of grassroots organisations. Supporting and strengthening local organizations is not charity, it is an investment in resilient and empowered communities.

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