BERTHA Naobes’ motherly instincts could not stand the sight of young children from the informal settlement in Karibib scrounging for food and she started a soup kitchen for them five years ago.
Naobes said because the children looked abandoned and malnourished, she decided to do something to ease their plight. She started feeding more than 10 children from the informal settlements every day.
A mother of three, Naobes says because her own children are married and moved out of the house, she has time on her hands. She is a nurse at the local clinic working with TB patients.
Although she has been buying the food with her own money the whole of last year, she is now feeling the pinch in terms of the cost of living and is appealing for assistance. She said her previous sponsors who included the church, stopped their support months ago.
“At first, I had sponsors who helped me but they stopped their assistance. I could not stop feeding the children because they still came to my house for food. Although I don’t feed them every day anymore, I try to give them food twice a week,” Naobes said.
She said most children come from homes with either one breadwinner only, or unemployed parents.
After feeding the children, she keeps them busy with different tasks, one of them is making paper bricks which are used as tinder for making fire.
“Electricity is expensive and wood is very scarce here. We collect newspapers and the children cut them into pieces. Then we soak them in water for a whole day. The following day we put the soaked paper into a brick mould to make paper bricks which they put out to dry,” she explained. She further said the paper bricks burn for a long time. They “want to start selling them to people in the neighbourhood to raise money for buying food for the children.”
Tusnelde Nowases, mother of nine, who also has nine grandchildren, said: “She (Bertha Naobes) is a lifesaver. She helps us everyday, not only the children, but grown-ups as well. When we don’t have food, we always knock at her door and she will help out.”
Naobes says she plans to open a bigger and better soup kitchen where she can help both children and senior citizens.
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