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As most of you would know, many African nationals have been threatened, assaulted and displaced in a wave of Xenophobic violence which has swept through South Africa in the last few weeks. SHAWCO has been privileged to be amongst those thousands of South African individuals, NGOs, and Faith Based Organisations which have responded to the needs of the
people affected by this violence.
Our students on upper campus, led by HannaH Schultz and Dorcas Anguria, mobilised the UCT students and residences to start bringing donations of clothing, food and hygiene products which were distributed to the different sites of refuge around the city. This process has continued for many weeks. They have also been coordinating volunteers who have been helping out in some of the bigger camps set up by the City.
Our health students, headed up by Thandi de Wit, Jess Rule and Britta McLaren, working in partnership with other civil society organisations, ran the first standardised assessment across 33 sites two days after the mass exodus of foreign nationals from the townships. This assessment collected data on many things including numbers of men, women and children, shelter, food provision, health needs, health services and safety. The framework used for this data collection was later adopted by Disaster Management. Students from upper campus formed part of a second assessment of over 60 sites four days later.
From the data gathered, SHAWCO Health was able to identify sites in need of extra health support. Our normal 6 weekly clinics functioned as normal (we did not want to withdraw services from our communities at this critical time) and, in the space of 8 days, SHAWCO ran an additional 9 clinics to sites of refuge around the Cape Peninsula. Our volunteers also supplied site coordinators with information on diarrhoea, TB and scabies outbreaks, medical red flags (what to refer, where and when) and contact details and addresses of the closest referral sites. SHAWCO has continued to respond in partnership with other civil society organisations with huge support from UCT staff and students alike, and we will continue trying to be part of the solution long after this news item goes live.
Through this crisis we have seen the true calibre of student leadership we have at SHAWCO. Their decisive, mature and compassionate response has been a credit to all involved in SHAWCO. We have also been reminded of the crucial role SHAWCO plays in the communities we serve. While it is imperative to respond to the needs of people who are enduring physical violence and threats to their lives, it is even more important to acknowledge that there are hundreds of thousands of people who live day-to-day as victims of the violence of poverty - just as real in its consequences as acute acts of violence. Through our Education projects and Health clinics, SHAWCO has mobilised around this need and, while the more long-term might not be as "exciting" or tangibly measureable, it is something infinitely more beneficial and should be addressed with the same urgency as we are now addressing the current crisis. Thank you to all of you who help us do just that.
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