{"id":4392,"date":"2016-03-20T18:19:42","date_gmt":"2016-03-20T16:19:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kagyu.org.za\/johannesburg\/?page_id=4392"},"modified":"2016-03-20T18:19:42","modified_gmt":"2016-03-20T16:19:42","slug":"rokpa-report-december-2015","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/kagyu.org.za\/johannesburg\/rokpa-gauteng-soup-kitchen\/rokpa-report-december-2015\/","title":{"rendered":"Rokpa Report December 2015"},"content":{"rendered":"

KSDJ ROKPA ACTIVITIES<\/strong><\/p>\n

(1 Dec 2014 to 1 Dec 2015)<\/strong><\/p>\n

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THE SOUP KITCHEN<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>Background and Context<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>The KSDJ Rokpa soup kitchen started in 1995, to provide a hot meal for under-privileged people in the inner city of Johannesburg. We provide a plate of hot vegetarian curried soup and rice, 2 peanut buttered sandwiches on brown bread<\/strong> and seasonal fruit<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Our recipients<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>The majority of soup recipients are men. This because of the history of male rural migrants who relocate to the city to look for work and send wages home to their families in rural areas.\u00a0 In addition, many people we meet at the soup kitchen are illegal immigrants from neighbouring countries and other southern African countries hoping for a better life.\u00a0 Johannesburg (the \u201cCity of Gold\u201d) is oft thought of as a place where wealth can be made and jobs are plentiful. Unfortunately this is rarely the case. Many migrants face poverty and extreme xenophobic prejudice from locals who themselves are unable to find sustaining work.<\/p>\n

Any women and children who arrive are served first and the children receive a colouring-in book<\/strong> and crayons<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>In the last report to ROKPA, it was reported that an average of 80 people were receiving soup during the warmer months, with this number increasing to about 100 people during the colder months.<\/p>\n

This year, the number of recipients increased to around 150 during the cold months \u2013 an increase of about one third<\/strong>. Even now in the warmer summertime, the number remains at around 130 people.<\/p>\n

This speaks to the increasing poverty and desperation in the inner city and also to the quality hot meal that we provide.<\/p>\n

In the past year the KSDJ ROKPA team have served approximately 6370 meals<\/strong> (49 weeks serving an average of 130 people)<\/p>\n

Our volunteers<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>The soup kitchen is run by volunteers from within and without the KSDJ Sangha.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>Francoise Holley co-ordinates the morning soup kitchen preparation and works with about 5 committed volunteers who prepare the soup and peanut butter sandwiches at 10h30 every Tuesday morning at the KSDJ Centre. Sadly, Francoise steps down as \u2018morning team\u2019 co-ordinator at the end of 2016. We wish her many blessings in the future.<\/p>\n

Lucy Pereira co-ordinates the evening soup delivery to the corner of Nind and Siemert Streets, Doornfontein, Johannesburg at 18h00 in the evening.<\/p>\n

There are also five regular on-site volunteers (themselves homeless), who help with the set out and serving of the food, crowd control and cleaning away litter after food distribution. They are \u2018paid\u2019 by receiving extra curry, 5 sandwiches and 2 fruit. We have found that the 5 homeless volunteers seem to have grown with a noticeable sense of worth and status\/self-respect amongst their peers. This is also in line with the ROKPA principle of \u2018<\/strong>helping people to help themselves<\/strong>\u2019<\/strong>. It also helps us volunteers tremendously of course.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>The soup recipe, supplier lists, previous reports, photographs, form templates etc. are stored in a Dropbox<\/em> folder for open, sustainable and easy access for future soup kitchen volunteers.<\/p>\n

The estimated volunteer hours <\/strong>for the soup kitchen between 1 December 2014 and 1 December 2015 amount to 686<\/strong> hours<\/strong> calculated as follows:<\/p>\n

The soup kitchen operates every Tuesday (closed for 3 weeks in December.)<\/p>\n