“We prefer cash donations”: Caritas South Africa Coordinator on Helping Flood Victims

In South Africa, she added, “when some communities see you giving away food in kind, they come and start looting because of the need that is great.”

She said that the entity of the Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference (SACBC) also prefer cash donations because the beneficiaries can use the monetary resources to purchase what is most needed.

“If we have this amount of money, they choose exactly what they need to buy,” the member of the Missionary Sisters of St. Charles Borromeo (Scalabrinians) further said, and added, “We don't have 1,000 kilograms of clothing, some of which are in very bad condition.”

Sr. Rissini said that the cash donations are forwarded to the Diocesan Caritas for distribution to the beneficiaries of the floods.  

“The money is forwarded to local Caritas. In some places, they give the money to the people while in other places they buy the goods and they are the ones to deliver,” the recipient of the Order of the Star of Italy for her service among migrants and refugees in Southern Africa told ACI Africa February 15.

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At least 1,000 people dwelling in informal settlements in Komani town have been displaced by the floods caused when the Komani river broke its banks following a heavy downpour.

In the February 15 interview with ACI Africa, Sr. Rissini described the downpour experienced in parts of South Africa as “very strange.”

“There has been a lot of rain. It is very strange because some of the places are flooding; the people have become homeless because of this situation, and some other parts of South Africa, like Port Elizabeth, are experiencing drought,” she said.

The Italian-Brazilian Catholic Nun said the “strange” weather in South Africa is a result of “a big climate change”.

“Climate change is really present, and it is something that worries,” she said, and added that people’s lifestyles are contributing to the crisis. 

She lamented, “Our lifestyle is not really sustainable; there are so many plastics, and the country is not worrying much to make separation with plastics and other types of refuse.”

“We want everything to be good, beautiful; we want clean water, but we are living contradictory lives because we have, in the cities, especially here around Johannesburg, Pretoria, a lot of that water that is running all over the street and nobody cares. We also see we have no electricity because of this,” Sr. Rissini said. 

The Johannesburg-based Catholic Nun called on the people of God to care for the environment, saying, “We really have to look after our planet. We need to honestly care for our common home where we are all living. This is a task for everybody and all of us have to do it.”

Magdalene Kahiu is a Kenyan journalist with passion in Church communication. She holds a Degree in Social Communications from the Catholic University of Eastern Africa (CUEA). Currently, she works as a journalist for ACI Africa.