The big heart of ‘Mama’ Soraya

Writer: Elaine Davie.

Photographer: Taylum Meyer.

Soraya Pieterse is a wife, a mother of four young girls and a grandmother of one. They all live together in a small matchbox house at the bottom end of Mount Pleasant, right opposite the Marikana informal settlement. A woman of strong faith, she believes she has been blessed, so that she in turn can bless others, especially needy children and old people.

Having become increasingly aware of how many hungry children there were in the shacks across the road and in her own neighbourhood, she knew she had to start doing something about it. On 1 April this year, she counted the R300 she had in her purse, went out and bought bread, polony and chips and, as in the story of the loaves and fishes, began to share what she had with passing children.

Thus was launched the Love, Hope, Faith and Happiness Soup Kitchen which today provides at least one meal a day, seven days a week to an average of 140 hungry children. Over the weekends, some of them come for breakfast, in addition to lunch.

When Soraya started the project, she literally didn’t know where the next meal would come from. If her husband had work, he contributed, but often he was unemployed. Not only did she need ingredients for meals like macaroni, vetkoek, stew and vegetables, sandwiches, baked beans and rice and a full Sunday lunch for the children, but she needed large cooking pots, a gas hob and the gas to drive it. She also needed plastic containers, eating utensils and glasses for her small guests.

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