A street dweller from Nelson Mandela Bay who used to be a successful lawyer, hit rock bottom and ended up on the streets after his marriage collapsed a few years ago.
Now, André Zakay, who graduated with a law degree from the University of the Western Cape in the early 1990s, has decided that it’s time to pick up the pieces of his life as the country’s current challenges have opened his eyes and made him realise that life has given him a second chance.
Sitting on his mattress at the Jarman Hall in Schauderville, where he currently resides for the lockdown period, along with more than 60 other street dwellers, Zakay said that his time at the shelter had taught him a valuable lesson: the homeless community of the Bay need a mouthpiece if they want to be accepted back into society.
Zakay wants to use his legal background to start an organisation that advocates for the homeless. “No one will really ever understand how hard it is to live like this.
“The looks we sometimes receive from certain people and the way they look so shocked when you speak to them, as if they thought we don’t know how to communicate, is very hurtful.
“We are being marginalised because we are street dwellers, but if people only knew that there are so many talented people who live on the streets and some of us are educated; we just made the wrong choices in life,” Zakay said.
“Since most of the street dwellers have a trade that they excel in, I would like this organisation to be the middleman between our community and businesses in the Bay.
Whenever business projects arise, the organisation could negotiate with these businesses to employ street dwellers so that they could become self-sufficient again and regain their dignity,” he added.
“I’m not comfortable with the word, ‘homeless’, because we all come from a home. I prefer being called a street dweller.
“We also might be seen as homeless, but we are not powerless. After Covid-19, we want to know what is going to happen to us and we want to write our own ending by taking matters into our own hands and standing up for ourselves.”
Zakay also emphasised that he is not trying to start a political party, but rather an organisation aimed at self-empowerment.
“I’ve even thought about a name, the United Disadvantaged and Forgotten Frontiers (UDAFF).
“To some it may sound similar to the name of a political party, but I’ve only thought about it because it represents our need,” he explained.
According to Zakay, who has already gained support from most of the other street dwellers, he wants to get the ball rolling as soon as lockdown is lifted.
“We are seen as beggars, but I believe that we can be self-empowered. We just want the world to know that we are a part of the community and that we are willing to work for it.”
