A R600 000 Truck Donation Boosts Aid Organisation’s Food Distribution To Destitute South African Communities
A Johannesburg-based humanitarian organisation, which has helped sustain destitute communities for the past 25 years, received a welcome boost to its national food distribution programme recently with the donation of a large and much-needed truck.
Ashraful Aid is dedicated to assisting the vulnerable in South Africa and in more than 135 countries around the world.
With the recent economic strains on South African society, the organisation’s food and grocery hamper distribution programme has taken on increased importance. However, with such increased activity, the organisation had to rely on the use of a number of sedans to make its country-wide humanitarian aid trips, as it lacked a single large vehicle which would have improved efficiencies and saved money.
In the face of the rapidly growing need for effective food distribution to South Africa’s destitute communities, the South African Muslim Charitable Trust (SAMCT) intervened, donating a R600 000 truck to the organisation for the better co-ordination and more efficient distribution of vital foodstuffs to desperate and far-flung communities.
Commenting on its vehicle donation, SAMCT spokesperson, Mr Gaf Osman, said: “Ashraful Aid is an organisation undertaking exceptionally important humanitarian work to the benefit of this country’s most vulnerable and poverty-stricken individuals and communities. However, the inefficiencies associated with its distribution programme, the consequence of circumstances beyond its control, meant a waste of vital financial resources.”
“We jointly recognised that by streamlining the organisation’s transport situation, Ashraful Aid would be able to enjoy the ability to extend its reach to suffering communities and more effectively co-ordinate its overall food distribution programme.”
Created in 2008, the SAMCT provides funding, services and other resources for the improvement of the lives of the vulnerable, deprived and disadvantaged. It has successfully delivered sizeable assistance solutions throughout the country, irrespective of race or religion and works to support needy organisations in the fields of health, social development, poverty alleviation and education.
“Effective and efficient transport forms the lifeblood of so many humanitarian organisations in our country, but the price of appropriate vehicles is often beyond the means of such charitable enterprises, which rightly focus on their core responsibilities – the care of the people they exist to serve. We, of the SAMCT, were therefore very pleased at the opportunity to assist Ashraful Aid, making their incredibly difficult and costly operations a little easier and effective,” said Mr Gaf Osman.
Ashraful Aid’s humanitarian programmes extend beyond food provision, encompassing the additional provision of water, health-care, shelter and a range of other basic amenities to those most in need. It also offers assistance to both homes for the elderly and children’s homes and through its education and women and youth empowerment programmes it provides people with the skills to become economic contributors in the working world, thereby escaping the poverty trap.
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For more information about SAMCT and its Ashraful Aid truck donation, please contact:
Rasheeda Motala
Social Responsibility Officer
Email: samct@samct.co.za
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