Women’s Day gift: New home delivers hope and dignity for unemployed mother

A destitute Limpopo woman received a fitting Woman’s Day present from local businesses when the Thulamela local municipality in Venda handed her a new house on the eve of the commemoration.

For the past 28 years, the 42-year-old woman, Levhuwani Negondeni, had to brave chilling winter weather and torrential rain in a cracked mud house with her three children and two grandchildren.

‘Laughing stock of the village’

The unemployed mother and grandmother had to use the nearby bush to respond to the call of nature.

This, she said, was after her constant pleas for government to build her a RDP house and a pit toilet fell on deaf ears.

“My children and I became the laughing stock of the village as sometimes we would do it in the open, usually during rain or freezing winter weather. The house we used to sleep in had developed huge cracks as it has seen many days. This threatened our lives.

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“But now all that is water under the bridge. Thanks to the municipality for this wonderful gesture. We will now sleep in peace knowing we have a proper roof over our heads,” said the elated Negondeni after the cutting of the ribbon that signalled a new lease of life for her and her family.

Negondeni said since 2005, she had knocked on the door of every government department and the local municipality asking for help.

She said the authorities sent her from pillar to post.

No education, no job

Worse, Negondeni said no company would give her a job as she is uneducated.

“At times, I did not see or feel any democracy. I felt like this freedom that we fought for was for some people and not women from far-flung rural areas such as me,” she said. She had depended solely on handouts from kind people and locusts and natural vegetables for relish as she could not afford anything better.

“This is the best present I have got since I was born. It is also important to me because for the first time in my life, I am going to have a decent sleep with my children and grandchildren. This present has given me a sense of dignity and hope for the future. Now I feel like a complete woman,” she said.

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The house consists of four bedrooms, a kitchen and a living room. It came fully furnished.

Speaking during the handover ceremony, mayor of the Thulamela municipality, who oversaw the building of the house, Athongozwidivha Sarah Rambuda, said it was priority number one for the municipality to bring joy to the less fortunate, the previously disadvantaged and the poorest of the poor.

She said the present was in line with this Women’s Month theme of accelerating socioeconomic opportunities for women empowerment.