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Aiming to eradicate poverty one meal at a time

Aiming to eradicate poverty one meal at a time

Instead of throwing a lavish 1st birthday for her daughter in 2013, Johanna Hauwanga decided to spend money and celebrate it with children that are less fortunate in her community.

Since then Johanna has maintained her routine and annually she visits Mrs Sylvia Taapopis Home to do the little that she can for the less fortunate children, be it food or any other donations.

Over the years she has managed to encourage and include her friends in the initiative and of late she offers her help at the House of Prayer Home owned by Mr Elias Geingob.

“The [Homes] have children who are disabled and do not have parents so we decided to offer a helping hand by having feeding programmes, buying stationary and giving Christmas and New Year groceries to them,” she added.

For her efforts to go the extra mile, Johanna wants the youth to stand up and contribute to helping their communities. “It is our responsibility as the youth to love and care for one another and it starts with caring for the ones who have no shelter, food clothing, clean water and support system of parents and family members,” she said

Meanwhile, she is thankful for all her friends who have dedicated their time and finances to the feeding programmes they engage in and according to her that is how she came about to calling her initiative “The Helping Hand Charity Group”, because they reached out to her and offered her their helping hands.

Her moto in life is to continue helping out her community and orphans as much as she can with the little that she has. “The best part of doing charity work is seeing the faces of the little children who have no support system happy and thankful for the little that you have brought for them and seeing young people who want to offer a helping hand to the group,” she said.

In terms of future plans she vowed to continue to offer her helping hand to those in need.

About The Author

Mandisa Rasmeni

Mandisa Rasmeni has worked as reporter at the Economist for the past five years, first on the entertainment beat but now focussing more on community, social and health reporting. She is a born writer and she believes education is the greatest equalizer. She received her degree in Journalism at the Namibia University of Science and Technology (NUST) in June 2021. . She is the epitome of perseverance, having started as the newspaper's receptionist in 2013.