A community outreach program in the Walmer Township in Port Elizabeth, Healing Minds, have benefited by a donation of industrial sewing machines from the private sector.
Healing Minds Community Services is an organisation aimed at community development, health wellness and creating opportunities. This initiative hopes to curb various social ills the community faces like poverty and high unemployment.
The community outreach centre was filled to the brim, with senior citizens in the community joyous at the arrival of new equipment.
Founder of Healing Minds, Elizabeth Mangaliso, and her dedicated team of clothing designers are confident that these sewing machines will empower the community.
Mangaliso says, “We are very happy about this donation, because now it is evident that our work is really paying off. But what we are most happy about is that we are currently training the youth. It is not only senior citizens, but everyone is welcomed, especially the youth, so that when we are too old we can give over to them. But the goal is also to give dignity to the people of Walmer and put food on the table.”
The Department of Social Development has welcomed this initiative by the private sector and says the goal is to eradicate social ills.
Eastern Cape MEC for Social Development Phumza Dyantyi says, “We have to involve the private sector so that we work together to tackle the various social ills in our communities and because this centre also gives training. It is a centre that helps this community and the Nelson Mandela Bay community.”
CSI Manager for Sun International Heidi Edson says, “Boardwalk has been instrumental in this project and the sustainability thereof. We’re looking today at the sewing room and the ECD centre and we started out in 2017 and poverty eleviation for us and looking at National Development Goals is very important for Sun International and we are very proud to be part of the project”
One of the long-term goals for this community centre is to sew school uniforms for the various disadvantaged communities across the Eastern Cape.
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