Moms Who Care, a non-profit organisation, began some seven years back when Adeebah Ariefdien Sha found a need to give back to her community and subsequently decided to start a feeding scheme with the help of a few of her closest friends.
Kashiefah Shabodien, Kashiefah Peters and Razaan Naidoo, together with Adeebah’s children make up the Moms Who Care team.
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‘These ladies are so selfless, and they do it all for the cause and not for the applause,’ Sha told Cape {town} Etc when speaking about the team of women behind her.
Moms Who Care has been uplifting and feeding those seen as less fortunate ever since its induction in 2017. Sha took it upon herself to honour her mother, who at the time was suffering from cancer, and they began by dishing out small punnets of food from a 40-litre food pot.
The organisation has seen tremendous growth over the years, and they now cook 12 100-litre food pots every week.
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Moms Who Care has grown from a feeding scheme to a fully-fledged outreach programme that has seen them help women, the elderly and youth from Hanover Park, Manenberg, Bonteheuwel and the surrounding areas.
The organisation hosts self-awareness programmes as well as workshops that cater for addicts and family members of addicts, workshops for blended families, and workshops for caregivers.
As these programmes are run from less fortunate and statistically dangerous areas, many would ask the question of whether Moms Who Care can cope with these dangerous and temperamental factors posed to them by certain groups of the communities they find themselves in.
‘It is often the case where we go into these areas and we find that the younger children are too afraid to leave their homes to grab a punnet of food because they fear getting hit with a bullet if gun violence breaks out; that really breaks my heart,’ says Sha.
The organisation has catered for many recipients since it first began, and it currently has a few hundred on its books since it first launched.
Financial struggles come with being a non-profit organisation and that has been no different for the Moms Who Care organisation. They rely on donations from the community to help them continue their selfless acts of uplifting and giving back but these donations have seen a decline since the onset of the pandemic in 2020.
‘The pandemic did not help our cause at all, and we’ve seen a reduction in the amount of donations we receive. We try to seek the help of certain companies in order to sponsor us but with rejection at every turn,’ says Sha.
‘We are calling on anybody, even if it is a R5, to donate to Moms Who Care in order to continue this programme and continue to help the communities that are in need,’ added Sha.
Moms Who Care has hosted two Iftaar celebrations in this month of Ramadan thus far. The first saw them in Newfields Village on Saturday 16 March and the most recent saw them travel to Hanover Park on Saturday 23 March where 500 individuals were fed.
Bonteheuwel and Manenberg will host the next two mass Iftaar celebrations over the next two weeks when the streets of Manatoka in Bonteheuwel and Phoenix Street in Manenberg will be sectioned off to allow for this celebration.
‘We have these celebrations not only for religious reasons but to unite, uplift and encourage the people of these communities. Regardless of religion, race or background everybody is welcome to these celebrations.’
Enquiries about donations to the Moms Who Care organisation can be sent to +27 82 255 7062
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Picture: Supplied