Massive Fire Destroys the Homes of 10,000 Shack Dwellers in Cape Town

Massive Fire Destroys the Homes of 10,000 Shack Dwellers in Cape Town
We at EER are Responding
By Marie O’Neill, Head of Business Operations

Dear Friends of EER.
Last weekend while I was visiting South Africa, a devastating fire ravaged the informal settlement, Imizamo Yethu, destroying more than 2,000 homes, leaving more than 10,000 people homeless. The fire started just past midnight and burned through the shacks till noon on Saturday until firefighting crews could bring it completely under control.

In the aftermath of this tragedy, people are now rebuilding their homes and putting their lives back together.  For these folk who are already in the lowest brackets of poverty, it’s a time of great stress and trauma as you might well imagine.  It has also been a time of tremendous response.  There has been a massive outpouring of community action to ensure the provision of safe drinking water, food, temporary shelter, clothes and personal hygiene.

At EER it’s our business to understand and serve people who are relocating home.  For me there was an immediate desire to ensure our company comes along side these people who have completely lost their homes, and in most cases, literally escaped their homes with just the clothes on their backs.  It’s difficult to imagine such widespread loss.  We have provided an immediate relief grant of $3500 to Sacred Ibis, a community center situated immediately across the street from this devastated community and of course we plan to do more.

Sacred Ibis (named after the African bird) normally busies itself with a multipronged approach to building up this informal community of shack dwellers through community development programmes, but for the moment they have necessarily shifted their emphasis to restoring this devastated community.  Initially they focused on providing for the immediate need of water, food and other emergency supplies.  Additionally Sacred Ibis is a base for coordinating the large material and construction donations for the rebuilding of these people’s homes.  Trucks filled with donated windows, doors, walls, roofing material and more are delivering the supplies daily to the farm.  Sacred Ibis is coordinating the distribution of these materials to volunteer groups doing the construction and they continue to resource necessary outfitting supplies of small safe gas stoves, pots, pans and other household goods that were destroyed.

Rebuilding the lives of these 10,000 shack dwellers can’t happen overnight, and we are pleased to join this sustained effort to show true human compassion in the face of human tragedy.

Please contact us if you would like to contribute toward the restoration of this community.