Memorial at the Mandela capture site memorial. Pic from internet, photographer unknown.

We’re all broke, exhausted, dazed, going out of our minds. For millions of South Africans, the pandemic and accompanying lockdown, in which our government essentially locked up us with promises to take care of us, and then walked away, tossing the key down a drain, has meant unimaginable new levels of poverty and suffering.*

And now it’s Mandela Day (aka Middle-Class-Feel-Good Day). Not that I have ANY problems with the goodwill and funds raised today — I just wish this was something that we (most especially businesses) did in a sustained way, instead of in a single spasm of benevolence a year.

The other issue is that while it’s great to spend an hour making sandwiches — and if that’s what you did, well done — it’s also a good idea to make longer-lasting contributions. There are thousands of small, community-based hunger mitigation organisations active around the country, often just a handful of determined aunties armed with cooking pots, and their greatest needs are often practical: a supermarket might donate all their slightly wilted veg for soup, but where is the gas to cook it with?

So there are many small things we can still do today, and tomorrow, and the day after, even if we’re reeling from reduced incomes, job losses, worn down by homeschooling, scared, angry and weary to the bone.

Here are some cheap (by middle-class standards) ways to make a difference, to add just a spoonful of kindness to a world that’s become hideously harsh.

1) Give food. People are starving. I won’t even waste words on the inhumanity of shutting down school-feeding schemes, or the evil of food parcels mouldering in warehouses because of corruption and red tape. Let’s rather roll up our sleeves and get stuck in. While donating food parcels and ingredients to soup kitchens are wonderful things to do, there’s a huge need for grocery vouchers, which allow families to get what they need according to their storage and cooking facilities, health profile, and so on. You can send these directly to individual’s cellphones: Google will tell you how.

2) Ask ask ask. Don’t assume you know what’s needed. Approach your local feeding scheme (it may be running out of your church hall, primary school, Scout or yoga centre) and find out what small items they need most urgently.

3) If you have a car, stock up on small grab-bags of portable food (fruit, hard-boiled eggs, rusks, etc) to hand out to people begging at traffic lights.

4) If you’re making soup to give away, make concentrated amounts on a “1 stock/paste + 1 water” basis — a litre of “strong” soup to which the recipient can add a litre of boiling water. (Add a label explaining this.)

5) Provide the necessary practical bits and pieces: community kitchens are desperate for big pots and pans and fuel, as well as ingredients like salt, dried herbs, stock cubes and the like. Donate a saucepan or canister of gas for Mandela Day.

6) I never thought I’d say these words, but strong plastic containers with seal-tight lids are worth their weight in gold at the moment. Give away Tupperware, ice-cream and marg tubs, big yoghurt pots — those coconut oil buckets with handles are especially useful for carrying and storing fresh and dried food.

7) It’s not just food that’s desperately needed. According to local CANs (Community Action Networks), these are the most necessary items: disposable nappies (also words I never thought I’d write, but consider the misery of cloth nappies in a winter pandemic with water shortages AND loadshedding); prepaid electricity (you can send this directly to people’s meters); paraffin and gas; kettles, hot-water bottles and blankets; OTC medicines and kitchen remedies (for example, ginger-lemon-turmeric-chili-clove brews and menthol oil for steaming); the makings of hot drinks so people can stay warm and hydrated; data; airtime; toiletries, including sanitary pads.

8) Water: several regions in South Africa are without water right now. Each time I try to imagine maintaining hygiene protocols in a pandemic with no access to water, my mind boggles. Donate those 5-litre bottles where appropriate (regions in the Eastern Cape are especially desperate).

9) Give away hand sanitisers, soap, masks and gloves. It’s no good telling people to wear masks (as indeed we all should) when they don’t know where their next meal is coming from. Donate masks, and buy yours from the many local outfits who donate a mask for everyone purchased. This also gives you a chance to support small local industries.

10) Thanks to Eishkom (there are simply not enough swear words in all the languages), people now also need torches, batteries, chargers, solar lamps, those small gas cookers. Give where you can.

11) Warm clothes, and not just jerseys and other bulky clothing: offer scarves, wraps, gloves, hats, mittens, beanies, socks and other one-size-fits-all items that are portable and can be worn around the clock (including for sleeping in). Nothing to give? Find your granny’s wool and crochet hook, and get cracking.

12) If you know a family nearby who has members with Covid infections, here’s how to help. Drop off the means of keeping warm (kettles, blankets, hot-water bottles, heaters, thermoses of tea and coffee, etc); and nourishing food. (These are the two most vital needs, based on personal experience AND anecdotal evidence.) This goes especially if the adult/s in the household are sick in charge of children. Send over ready-made meals, and if you have spare old-model cellphones, load them up with games and loan them, along with data, so the kids have something to do while their caregivers sweat it out. Provide books and toys. Make sure these families feel socially supported, even as you keep your distance. They’ll need to self-isolate for up to 14 days, so keep going, or set up a local roster for dropping off dinner. Or, if you can afford it, send a supermarket or restaurant food delivery at regular intervals.

13) Support small, local businesses, or help them adapt: order a weekly veg box from your local farm stall, buy a friend’s music or book, donate your fabric stash to a mask-making operation or sewing collective, and so much more. Check out what’s going on in your ’hood — this is where social media is a boon.

These are just some of the little things you can do to make every day Mandela Day. And yes, these gestures may feel so tiny as to be pointless — a bit like the things I’m always encouraging people to do to help the ailing planet. But never forget the parable of the widow’s mite from Mark’s Gospel — I take hope from that.

Good luck everyone, and remember to send in your tips for helping — even as we’re hitting the wall of donor fatigue and all-round bamboozlement (there’s a very weak alcohol-related pun in there somewhere, but let me not go there).

* For a more encompassing view of what’s broken in our society, and how to fix it, I recommend this excellent piece by some very good people. There ARE indeed solutions.