Senior citizens receive Life 4U Foundation food parcels

As part of the Women’s Month celebrations, the Life 4U Foundation project hosted the Widows Care programme at Moriting on 4 August.

Fifty widows from Tembisa and Ivory Park received food parcels on the day. The programme is a project which was initiated in 2014 to care for the widows of South Africa and has grown from strength to strength. The widows there face many challenges following the deaths of their husbands. The project not only supports the widows, it supports orphans as well, and the main objective is to alleviate poverty through food and clothing distribution and to continuously comfort widows and orphans with the word of God.

“The project is a gospel ministry on its own and the mission is to make sure that widows and orphans see the love of God because the Bible teaches us in the book of Deuteronomy that we need to circumcise our hearts and not be stiff-necked any longer,” said Simon Molekwa, project manager for the Life 4U Foundation.

“This project of caring for the widows is very special in our hearts because widowhood is a traumatic life experience and process that naturally should evoke sympathetic treatment. Treatment faced by women who have lost their husbands is sometimes very inhumane and unfortunate.

“In most cases, they are accused of killing their husbands and as such are subject to all kinds of trials and ordeals. They are often considered to be cursed, especially when wearing their mourning clothes because people tend to avoid sitting next to them. The inhumane treatment vented on the widows varies from one culture to the other.”

Molekwa added, “After the period of mourning, women are subjected to the psychologically frustrating experience or go through the process of having to marry another male figure within the family of their late husband.

“The maltreatment of widows is wide-ranging. Young children of widows are forced to drop out of school, work and become destitute due to lack of access to their fathers’ resources.”

As we celebrate Women’s Month, Molekwa has offered some advice. “Women should try as much as possible to do so many things by themselves without totally depending on their husbands and partners. All women should have a means of livelihood so that they can be economically stable. Men should be educated on how to put their homes in order before they die, which would ensure that half the property goes to the wife.”

All 50 beneficiaries received 12,5kg maize meal, 10kg rice, two litres cooking oil, one-litre vinegar, 200g soup box, 2kg sugar, 1kg salt, one-litre juice, 12 stock cubes, two tins canned beans and 130g tea bags.

“Our communities must please understand we work with limited resources and we cannot accommodate everyone.

“We would like to thank our pastors and the Church of Kingdom Heirs for entrusting us with the programme, not forgetting our organisation sponsor, Iwisa Maize Meal for the continuous support in alleviating poverty in our communities.”