Raised by his grandmother, the founder and chairperson of Thandanani Drop Inn Centre, Thabo Kgotsi, decided to celebrate his birthday month with elderly people.

Hailing from Mamelodi, Kgotsi turned 43 on March 12, and instead of receiving gifts on his birthday, he thought of the elderly’s needs, especially those raising their grandchildren, by spending the day with them.

He started celebrating his birthday month by donating a total of 150 12.5kg mealie meals for elderly people in Mamelodi and another 150 to the elderly in Hammanskraal.

Kgotsi said he was raised by his late grandmother, Jane Kgotsi, together with his brother Victor Tswai, the co-founder of Thandanani Drop Inn Centre.

He said his grandmother raised the two of them with love and care, and she also cared for other children in the community.

“The mealie meals are one of the important things elderly people want because they always make sure that their grandchildren will never sleep on an empty stomach,” said Kgotsi.

He said his late grandmother passed on at the age of 101 in 2008, and she was not only looking after them but the whole community, caring for every child in the community in terms of food, clothes, and school uniforms.

Therefore, in honour of his late grandmother, he decided to celebrate his birthday month with all the elderly people in the townships.

The next programme of his birth month will be loaves of bread to the community and ending the month by donating food parcels to the elderly.

Kgotsi said he will no longer celebrate his birthday with friends, but going forward will instead be celebrating it with elderly people by donating essential food.

Inspired by their grandmother, Kgotsi and Tswai founded the Thandanani Drop Inn Centre in 2011 with a vision to do something positive within their community to avoid staying at home doing nothing.

Today, the centre has more than 100 volunteers, mostly unemployed youth from Mamelodi’s East Section SNS.

Kgotsi said their centre started with clean-up campaigns around the community, cleaning health facilities, schools, churches, and government buildings with the aim of living in a healthy environment.

He said the organisation was finally registered in 2013, and the first community project was an after-school programme and feeding scheme for needy children.

“The centre helps children with their schoolwork in the afternoons and gives them food while they wait for their parents to come back from work,” he said.

“The afternoon school programme has grown, and nowadays it also has a school holiday programme that keeps children busy and away from doing bad things, including drugs,” said Kgotsi.

Other programmes they have started are the drug and substance abuse programme, helping drug addicts to come clean and reuniting them with their loved ones.

The Thandanani organisation also cares about the environment; they identified illegal dumping sites within the community of Mamelodi and turned them into community parks.

Furthermore, the centre employs 30 youth members working on different programmes, including ex-drug addicts.

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