South Africa does not think of the poor. The poorest of the country are the majority but we are kept voiceless. The poorest I am talking about are the shack dwellers, the street traders, the street kids, the flat dwellers who can’t afford the rent and the unemployeds from Cape Town to Musina in the Limpopo Province and from Richard’s Bay on the Indian Ocean to Alexander Bay on the Atlantic Ocean.

We always say that the fact that we are poor in life does not make us poor in mind. We know that our country is rich. There are all the minerals like gold and aluminium, the water and the forestry, the trade and the industry, the agriculture, the art and the culture and the science and the technology. The Freedom Charter said that the wealth of South Africa should benefit the people of South Africa but it is not like that. The land of our ancestors was taken for the farms and the forests. Our grandparents and parents worked on those farms and in the mines and factories and houses. Now we are either trying to make a living selling to other poor people or we are the servants who come quietly into the nice places with our heads always down to keep them nice and to keep them working for the rich. Most of our time goes into just trying to survive. To get some little money, to get water, to see a doctor, to rebuild our homes after they have burnt down, to get our children into school or to try and stop evictions. We shouldn’t be suffering like this.