Know more about the local shelter helping homeless people
Vulnerable residents received accommodation at the stay-in shelter in Kempton Park.
The Mould Empower Serve (MES) national office was established in Hillbrow in 1986.
The organisation arranged programmes to bring relief through food security and outreach work.
MES mobilised the youth to bring service to the community.
Kempton Park MES fundraiser and marketer Luwanda Conco said an independent Section 21 company was registered in 1989.
Since then, MES has developed a holistic service model addressing all aspects of poverty alleviation. For the past 37 years, MES changed its mandate focusing on a sustainable community development model with interventions that would provide a holistic service to the community.
“These interventions are based on a five-focus group model, which includes preventative and reactive programmes,” said Conco.
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She added that in 2010, the Kempton Park branch opened. It works with two of the five focus groups of the organisation – Youth and Adults at Risk and Families at Risk.
Conco said the Youth and Adults at Risk group focus on social relief, healthy living, trauma, mental and substance support, affordable accommodation, shelter solutions, job rehabilitation and spiritual enrichment.
The Families at Risk group focuses on a food parcel programme as part of its social work services.
She explained that the GROW Job and Life Skills Rehabilitation programme provided access to job and life rehabilitation interventions.
The target audience is the homeless and vulnerable community of Kempton Park, specifically those staying in their shelter.
“Daily workshops and enrichment programmes are hosted, together with earning a stipend for every shift worked,” she said.
She added that each shift took place through the MES recycling project, where recyclable materials were collected, sorted and sold to generate funds for the branch.
Conco told the Kempton Express that social workers, volunteers and local churches facilitated spiritual enrichment and life skills workshops.
“In the end, the programme changes unemployable and desperate individuals into employable individuals who are fit for employment so they can reintegrate into society,” Conco explained.
She said vulnerable residents received accommodation at the stay-in shelter in Kempton Park.
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The facility serves as a shelter for homeless men who get three meals daily. Social work services and a nurse were on site.
Conco said regular outreach and enrichment programmes took place with the clients who attended different projects. Weekly shelter outreaches took place, and the annual Winter HOPE and Christmas outreaches.
“The branch is continuously working on taking hands with various churches to achieve its goal and has various volunteer groups that assist with the spiritual enrichment activities,” said Conco.
In addition, she said MES offered a clothing bank that provides clothes for the vulnerable identified through the various programmes.
If an urgent need was identified in other organisations and churches and assistance was given in a disaster, including floods, fire, and others, clothes were also provided.
She said the food parcel project provided monthly food parcels to 68 poor and needy families with children living in the inner city.
“The main aim is to alleviate poverty and assist homeless people to become self-sustaining and responsible individuals who can be reintegrated into society,” she told the Kempton Express.
Conco said in the shelter programme, MES could accommodate 58 men aged between 18 and 59, and each shelter client was allowed to stay from six to 12 months.
Conco said that to be accommodated in the shelter, clients must undergo an intake assessment by a social worker or nurse.
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This helped MES assess if the client was suitable for admission into the shelter and the food parcel programme.
The MES has an application process which opens each year in the first week of October. Successful applicants will then receive food parcels for 11 months.
“Each shelter client is expected to pay a fee because this is part of teaching them to be responsible and self-sustaining.
“The clients with jobs pay R600 monthly, and clients who are a part of the GROW programme pay R400 monthly,” she said.
She said this fee covered their bed, a locker for their belongings, ablution facilities, three meals a day, a toiletry pack and a few clothing items upon intake.
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Conco said that each client goes through the Individual Development Plan with a social worker, ongoing one-on-one sessions with the social worker, regular social worker services and health care workshops and access to a nurse on site. If the client did not have or find employment, they joined the GROW programme.
