By Nangamso Mabindla
3 July 2006

A KIND gesture that started as means of providing food for Buffalo City's homeless is being transformed into an employment opportunity for many of the beneficiaries.

It all started in 2003 when Fezeka Matya-Mjamla started a soup kitchen in Oxford Street in East London after seeing a family eating out of a rubbish bin. Since then, Matya-Mjamla has been giving destitute people something to eat every day.

"I wasn't sure where this would take me to when I started, but with help from some businesses here in East London I have been able to keep going," she says. "My people go to bed after having something to eat twice each day."

Matya-Mjamla feeds 128 homeless people every day.

The next step was meeting Zukile Ngceke, who owns a construction company. Ngceke is determined to help the homeless gain skills to get jobs.

He gave Matya-Mjamla assistance and, to put the soup kitchen on a more professional footing, helped her register it as a business called the Masiqhame Feeding Scheme.

Ngceke is set to take 82 people from the feeding scheme and train them through his Gonubie-based company, in skills such as brick making, building and carpentry.

"You cannot only give people food, you need to help them re-establish their dignity in their families," says Ngceke. "That is why I am busy trying to help them acquire some kind of skill so that they start working to make a living."

Ngceke plans to approach the provincial department of labour to assist with training. "Some of these people are skilled but there are no jobs for them. We can't just wait for the government to support people; we need to meet the government halfway if we are serious about job creation."