June 30, 2004
By Lucky Sindane
JOHANNESBURG'S street children who find sanctuary at the Twilight Children's shelter will not be cold this winter: Operation Snowball has donated 200 blankets to the shelter.
Johannesburg's executive mayor, Amos Masondo, handed the blankets to the organisation on Wednesday 30 June.
Every winter Operation Snowball, which depends on donations from businesses and people, provides blankets, clothes and food to those in need.
Moegsien Williams, editor of The Star and Mayor Amos Masondo are joined by Tracy-Lee Dludla and councillor Christine Walters in handing out blankets
Photos by Enoch Lehung
Operation Snowball was set up in 1964 by the Rand Daily Mail newspaper, in association with the Martha Washington Club. When the Mail closed down in the mid-1980s the Star took over.
"Years back, when I started reading newspapers, the Star was my favourite and Operation Snowball was visible. It represents a sense of caring," Masondo said.
"It might seem like a small thing, but it provided some sense of hope to the community," he added.
Twilight Children was established 21 years ago to give temporary shelter to children who live on the streets of Hillbrow. There are about 60 children who live at the shelter; they all attend school.
"We want to reduce the number of children who live on the streets," said Jane Prichard, a director of Twilight Children.
The organisation runs a bridging programme that gives older children marketable skills and reintegrates them into their communities. It also has an outreach programme that feeds and clothes children found on the streets.
"We reach 150 children through our outreach programme," Prichard added.
Mergan Moodley, another director, said newspapers should write about these children doing good things - "not only when they are involved in crime".
He added: "There are a lot of good things that they do. We have a skills-training centre, which will give them job opportunities."
Another 20 blankets - a token of the 1 000 that will be delivered later - were donated to the Johannesburg Alliance for Street Children.
The alliance's deputy director, Tracy-Lee Dludla, spoke of the group's work. It places children in shelters and runs skills-development programmes.
"We are busy conducting a survey of street children for the purpose of compiling a database for all the regions in the city," she added.
The City of Johannesburg's department of social services has a partnership with the alliance in Region 8 - the inner city.
At Wednesday's presentation, the Star's editor, Moegsien Williams, said: "We try as best we can to meet the needs of organisations like churches, old-age homes, youth groups, street kids, poor schools and crèches."
Operation Snowball plans to give 10 000 blankets to the needy this year, Williams added.
"In conjunction with the mayor's office, we would like to give the disabled in Gauteng 5 000 blankets paid for by funds from the editor's fund. We have highlighted the disabled specifically because we are aware that the disabled are a 2004 focus for the mayor," said Williams.
"We look forward to truly making a difference to their lives. Winter has already set in and ideally we would like to make this distribution a reality in the next 10 days," he added.
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