Women in blue show care for community

Network gives family home a facelift

WOMEN AT WORK: Woman’s Network members Lieutenant-Colonel Nosipho Nodwala, right, and Warrant Officer Joy van de Merwe, left, with Station Hill resident Mary Booysen and her two-year-old daughter Ashante
WOMEN AT WORK: Woman’s Network members Lieutenant-Colonel Nosipho Nodwala, right, and Warrant Officer Joy van de Merwe, left, with Station Hill resident Mary Booysen and her two-year-old daughter Ashante

PORT Alfred policewomen, collectively known as the Woman’s Network, recently demonstrated their caring side by giving the home of a destitute Station Hill family a much-needed makeover.

The women in blue not only cleaned and repainted the house but also cleared grass outside, repaired the faulty toilet and broken tap, replaced broken doors and window glass and installed better quality furniture.

This was part of the Woman ’s Network’s community outreach and social responsibility and the women sought to ensure that Mary Booysen and her two children, aged two and six, did not suffer from the force of the winter season. The Woman’s Network was established in 2003 and among its objectives is reaching out and changing the lives of ordinary members of the community.

The structure has champions in each cluster countrywide to lead the network and facilitate all activities that highlight contributions of women towards the strategic objectives and budgetary programmes of the SAPS.

The network’s vision also focuses on combating crimes against women and children.

Captain Thuli Tonisi said the Booysen family home in Nelson Road had been in a bad state and the network had been concerned about the health and safety of the mother and her two children.

Booysen, 37, praised the SAPS women for their efforts. “I was embarrassed by the state of my parents’ home before the SAPS renovated it. With broken windows and doors, my children were falling sick regularly and the monthly grant I get for them is not enough because I also have to buy food,” Booysen said.

Port Alfred Station commander Colonel Lizette Zeelie expressed pride in the members for their hard work. “I am proud of them for opening their wallets for donations in trying to uplift the circumstances of a person in need,” Zeelie said.

More donations were received from members of the public, and the SAPS’ Men for Change provided support in the project.