While Women’s Month has come and gone, senior citizens from Langa only ended the celebrations on Monday 8 September at Langa Civic Hall, previously known as Johnson Ngwevela Community Hall.
The event was organised by Langa Community Advice Service (LCAS), a non-profit organisation (NPO) that provides legal advice, gender-based violence and femicide (GBV/F) support and community advocacy to support and teach the seniors about their rights.
Noko Masipa, Member of the Western Cape Legislature, and JP Smith, Mayco member for safety and security, attended the gathering.
Anele Gqasane, LCAS project manager, described the event as part of celebrating Women’s Month.
“Since there was nothing done for our senior citizens, particularly women during the Women’s Month, we decided to do something just to entertain them.
“We invited the government officials to educate them about their rights,” said Gqasane.
Explaining why they delayed the event, he said it was because some of their speakers had a busy schedule last month.
Masipa described the women as special people. He said their role as members of parliament is to educate the community about their rights.
“We are here to commemorate Women’s Month, which obviously due to commitments in parliament we didn’t do last month. As parliament we do oversight on the work that is done by the City or provincial parliament. We also need our community to understand the constitution and democracy and being able to engage with parliament. This is the way of bringing parliament to the people on how they can engage us effectively in order to deal with their issues,” said Masipa.
He stated that many seniors are facing challenges from their communities which include rape, GBV and being neglected among others
Smith said it was an honour to spend time with the elders and share valuable information with them. “We were telling them about their rights and encouraging them to report everything that is concerning them to the police station. This is part of giving back to the community. The Cape Town that we see today was built by their generation,” said Smith.
Langa Police Station Sector manager Sgt Siyanda Socutshana informed the women about the special services that are specially designed for them. “If they have a problem they can go to the station and ask for the social crime prevention office or sector manager. We encourage them to have relationships with our neighbourhood watch members and street committees so that we can know them,” said Socutshana, adding that the elders don’t need to queue at the station.
He stated contact details of station managers are displayed on the front wall for everyone to see them.
Senior citizen Vuyiswa Taule, who is a co-founder of Mthonjeni Senior Citizen Club, described the gathering as a special event. “We are glad that they are remembering us. Normally they usually come around election time. Today, we feel blessed,” said Taule. She urged other seniors to join clubs instead of sitting at home.
