Beloved community figure and local activist Norah Juries died in hospital in the early hours of Monday (5 December) at the age of 66.
The passionate community worker who served the poor and marginalised of the Helderberg for nearly four decades from an office in Church Street, Somerset West, continued in this vein after retirement, opening an office at her home in Strand which closed at the beginning of this year.
Juries moved to the Western Cape in 1969 and worked at Huis Pam Brink in Strand before starting a domestic workers’ association in the Helderberg.
She settled in Rusthof and soon become more involved with the plight of other disadvantaged and vulnerable groups, such as domestic workers and farmworkers, and eventually started the Strand Action Group as a vehicle to fight apartheid in the 1980s, thanks largely to help from international donors and assistance from Lawyers for Human Rights.
She served as chairperson of the Strand Action Group and also headed up an advice office, which was constantly inundated with requests for assistance, be it around evictions, labour matters or any other issue that demanded legal intervention.
On her retirement in May this year (“Long-serving advice office closes”, 26 May 2022) Juries said she was prepared to give up her remaining time to train a successor to take over the reins of serving the community.
Over the years she helped hundreds, if not thousands, of individuals and families.
“I’m restless,” she said at the time, “I can’t lie-in or sit back and relax the whole day. My energy is just there for the community. I’m still prepared to help people while I can, even if it’s not on a regular basis. I still feel as if I owe the community something.”
Juries is survived by her son Charles (50) and daughters Sylvia Juries (38) and Lizabe McNeil (43).
A funeral service for Juries is being arranged for Saturday 17 December.
