Introduction
The Corona Virus pandemic COVID-19 will cause a severe impact in the humankind and add to the burden of the triple challenge staring our communities, Poverty, Inequality and Unemployment. In addition to these challenges, is the growth of Social Ills ravaging our communities especially amongst youth. Government will never be able to win this fight alone without the social partners and philanthropists.
The City of uMhlathuze demographics is no difference to many parts of the country. The level of unemployment is huge and this is evident through a number of people relying on government grants for a living. The COVID-19 predicament has created a need for more assistance to be given to the vulnerable people.
This pandemic is adding more to the already existing challenges. The Lockdown including the extended lockdown and the anticipation of the yet unknown phasing out of lockdown is certainly going to hit hard to a number of community members who are reliant on daily movement to fend off for their families.
To mitigate the negative impact and to consolidate all endeavours to assist vulnerable groups and members of the community, the City of uMhlathuze Troika has tasked the Senior Management to establish a Committee that will strategize, synergize and package a transparent, well-coordinated and apolitical programme to assist through mobilising donations and fair distribution following the Operation Sukuma Sakhe processes to identify beneficiaries.
Background
The City of uMhlathuze Municipality comprises of 34 ward of which only three are urban based, some are semi-urban and the rest are rural based. The demographics dictate that majority of the citizenry of the Municipality are the rural poor who depend on grants for survival and/or jobs.
The country has been on lockdown as declared by the President of the Republic on 26th of March 2020, and this has affected many aspects of livelihoods across the entire country, and the City of uMhlathuze is no exception.
The lockdown has brought about an economic stagnation across the board, people are facing difficulties maintaining their livelihoods, and accessing certain essential needs as most shops, businesses, industries and many other economic value chains are brought to halt.
