The humanitarian organisation The Gift of the Givers will be hosting its second mass boeka event in Pelikan Park this weekend.
Project Manager Ali Sablay says they will have two more iftar feedings after that, in Factreton and Mitchells Plain.
The world-renowned organisation has been busy handing out food parcels and hosting iftars all around Cape Town, including Kraaifontein and Heideveld in recent days.
“During the month of Ramadaan there is an excitement in the community,” Ali says.
“It is the month of blessings, the month of giving back, of spirituality and for many of the underprivileged it’s the month where they know they definitely will go to bed hungry at night.
“The Gift of the Givers has been hosting mass boekas for the last 13 years in different areas around the Cape Flats and in underprivileged areas in Western Cape.”
Sablay says the lockdown made things difficult to reach out to mense.
“During the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown, gatherings such as this were prohibited because of the large number of the attendance, so you can imagine the excitement when the president announced the ease in the restrictions and that lockdown is no longer in place, because they knew that mass boekas can be resume.
“With this in mind, our organisation was inundated with calls that asked where the mass boekas will be, as they know that this will be on the Gift of the Givers’ Ramadaan calendar.
“The first event was in the stretch of Heideveld where more than 750 people came to break their fast in the traditional way with a cup of Cape Town’s favourite, boeber, and savouries. And after prayers they had meat akhni.”
Ali adds: “In addition to the meal, pears and party packs were given to anyone joining the queue.”
He says the founding principle of the Gift of the Givers is to serve humanity, the only limit being the availability of resources.
“Religious teachings call for unconditional compassion. Colour, culture, class, religion, politics, and geography are irrelevant.”
This Saturday, the organisation will be in New Horizons and they expect feed 1000 people.
“We will then go to areas such as Factreton and Lavender Hill and on the last Saturday (of Ramadaan) we will be in Mitchells Plain,” says Ali.
“And this is besides the daily iftar feeding the Gift of the Givers does every evening where over 5000 people come and break their fast at the various centres we have set up around the Western Cape.”