To South Africa with Love 🇿🇦

Every morning I wake up and feel that I am split on the inside. I need to do something and this is a start.

I am a South African born New Zealander and I can't reconcile my current reality with that of my home country's. Here, we are in level 1. We are back at work, school, kindy, life. We are concerned about the economy and the world at large, but in a practical sense we are back to 'normal' and getting on with it.

This isn't sitting right with me, personally. I feel as though I am failing my best self. So this morning I decide to get off my butt and commit to doing Something!

My family and I have decided to put money into a Givealittle Page to support South Africans in need with basic food, essentials and masks. There isn't a whole lot in a practical sense that we can do from here, but we can send some of our money to people who need it a heck of a lot more than we do.

To contextualise, half of South African adults live below the Poverty Line, which sits at approximately NZ$100 per month. Their Coronavirus stats are alarming and climbing, hospitals are already at capacity, but the economy is opening up because if it doesn't then people will die of starvation instead.

On Monday 13 July I will send the funds from this page to a group of ten women, dear friends who I have known for more than half my lifetime, and ask them to distribute it where it's needed most. I know that they will do this with the utmost of integrity and care, and in the form of food, essentials, masks etc rather than money.

Thank you for reading, for donating, for sharing.

With very much love,

Katy Watts