Snippet News
April 2025 - Week 18
Accountable Compassion
Finding a good balance between having compassion for those in need … and not buckling under the pressure to meet every need at every whim is challenging but we seem to be finding the right balance! There are always those in need who, when offered the opportunity to turn things around, would rather walk away and place the pressure of their needs on someone else but never seem to be willing to work towards being able to carry their own load.
Our programme offers support to those who would prefer to make progress by wrestling with their situation rather than suffering in it.
At the base of our interventions lies our material support for families in need. This includes weekly food parcels, seedlings and home food garden support, donated clothing when it is distributed, and
household items as they are donated to us to pass on to those in need.
Remaining on our ‘Material Support Register’ doesn’t depend on the level of a family’s need though. It depends on their level of active participation in our programme and demonstrable progress towards becoming more self-sufficient as a household.
For us the end goal of the material support we distribute is not only to meet material needs of those in need, but to take some of the material stresses of life off the shoulders of these struggling families so that they can have the mental and emotional space to put their energy into addressing the more important ‘big picture’ issues into making their lives self-sustainable.
A few times a year we distribute donated clothing by allowing family representatives to ‘shop’ for their family’s clothing needs. This year’s Phase 1 (1st-year) group had the opportunity to participate for the first time (based on their participation as a family in the various activities of our programme) and a few days later we received this short letter from one of the mothers. Her well-deserved sense of joy, achievement, pride and improved self-worth are obvious.
Thank you to those who support and make these early moments of triumphant progress for someone like Portia possible!
