The JDI DO IT DAY 2020

Do It Day – a specific day of the year where people across South Africa commit to spending their day volunteering at local community projects that desperately need help. Volunteers use their skills and resources to make a difference to these projects; sometimes creating a long-term connection between the volunteer and project that has a permanent impact on both. Typically, Do It Day volunteers are positive, energised people who want to be part of solutions, change, and community upliftment, rather than just complaining about the problems we face in South Africa every day.

JDI itself will arrange all the fine details, so all the project volunteers need to do is make a firm commitment to be present, and arrive at a central meeting point on the day, after which teams will be dispatched to the different projects.

For those who are unable to commit their time to Do It Day, but still want to help, please think about contributing funds to the expenses of the day to help us buy the materials and resources needed to make the day a success.

Sign up below, or contact Caminey at catalyst@jdi.org.za for more information.

Ons Plek, meaning ‘Our place’, is the only residential Child and Youth Care Centre in Cape Town that specialises in developmental and therapeutic intake services for girls who have lived, worked or begged on the streets of Cape Town, and consists of three different sites. Their long-term Treatment Centre “Siviwe’ at Woodstock, provides an environment undisturbed by direct contact with street life. Once the girls have weaned themselves from street life while at Ons Plek shelter, and adjusted to a more structured life, they move to Siviwe.

Home from Home provides supported and supervised community-based foster care for orphaned, abused, neglected and vulnerable children in South Africa. These children are placed in community based foster homes –‘a normal house, in a normal street’ – where they receive the care and support they need. Home from Home cares for nearly 200 children across the Western Cape. By remaining in community-based homes, the children are able to retain a sense of personal and cultural identity, as well as be raised in their home language.

For a frail person without finances or family life can be a terrifying ordeal. Many of these elderly people also suffer from various debilitating physical and mental conditions such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s making them even more vulnerable.  Nazareth House provides a safe haven for the most impoverished and neglected old people in the disadvantaged community of Elsie’s River ensuring that they receive the care they need with compassion and dignity.

Do It Day is a popular event for companies looking for a team-building day with a difference, in the Cape Town area.

Do It Day volunteer teams engage in activities such as painting exterior/interior walls; installing play equipment; cleaning and sorting toys, planting vegetable gardens; building new houses; presenting careers workshops; fixing minor repairs.……there are many ways that your skills can be used to help those that need it.

Beneficiaries are carefully selected and vetted. They work in partnership with JDI to create a positive and constructive day that will yield a comfortable and uplifting experience for the volunteer team; and are usually chosen from the Western Cape area. In the past, JDI volunteers have worked with creches, care homes, schools and community garden projects; and all have come away with that unique and exhilarating feeling of having spent time in service for others to make a meaningful difference.