S.O.A.P.(supporting old age pensioners)

[Chick]

Have you seen the ITV news .... starvation is a real thing in Zimbabwe ...
Please help us to support SOAP (supporting old age pensioners) in Bulawayo

SOAP provide food deliveries once a month to a large number of people and ''every little bit helps''. They mainly support old age pensioners whose pension funds have collapsed. Without this organisations support some of these elderly people would be destitute and without food.

f you have any queries and would like to help please contact PATRICIA WILLIAMS at patashnix@btinternet.com (http://us.f527.mail.yahoo.com/ym/Compose?To=patashnix@btinternet.com)

[Chick]

Please Help SOAP support Pensioners in Zims
I can vouch for this organisation and assure you all monies received is spent on the pensioners who, without this food, would be starving. Most of them have lost their pension funds and have no family to supply/support them.

You can either send money via a cheque or make a deposit into a bank account. Or, you could set up a direct debit for an amount that you would hardly miss (£20 per month) but which could keep someone alive. Or you can send a parcel of food. Or Club together with friends and do something big!!

Regular updates will be posted to keep you informed.

Please think about this seriously and keep this in mind:
If it were not for these pensioners, we would not have benefited from the beautiful country we once had. They paved the way for our freedom and economy whilst it was good.

Any small amount will be of benefit. If you have any questions please PM me.

All parcel/donation queries should be directed to PATRICIA WILLIAMS at patashnix@btinternet.com (http://us.f527.mail.yahoo.com/ym/Compose?To=patashnix@btinternet.com)

Any questions - please pm me.

[Chick]

25th September 2007
From (SOAP Bulawayo) queries contact patashnix@btinternet.com (http://us.f527.mail.yahoo.com/ym/Compose?To=patashnix@btinternet.com) (SOAP OVERSEAS Co-ordinator)

Dear Friends,
This is meant to be one in a series of our regular inflation updates, sitting here I can’t say that I know exactly what is happening. We seem to be performers in a play, perhaps something like Alice in Wonderland.
As for inflation, has it fallen by a thousand percent? Well if you work on the fact that shops were forcibly made to reduce prices and, although nothing is available in the shops but use the decreed prices then inflation must have fallen. If on the other hand you use the black market price that is the only source of most commodities then inflation probably stands at around 13,000%.
Some of you will have heard and or read of the difficulties that we are facing just as ordinary citizens in this country, it is no exaggeration to say that there is virtually no food available at all. Luckily, we are able to buy vegetables, but that is the only commodity that is readily available to all. Anything else is a case of ‘making a plan’. This is fine if you have money and transport, but for the elderly who may well have to walk to the nearest shops and find nothing but empty shelves there is no other option other than for them to swallow their pride and seek help. Increasingly we are now finding that people outside the country are requesting food parcels for their elderly relatives here, although they have the money they are unable to find food.
At the local shopping centre when parking your car you can be offered chicken, sugar, cigarettes, maze meal and many other things that are unavailable in the shops. If you have the money that is fine, otherwise you go without. All products now have a controlled price on them so mealie meal for instance is Z$155,000 for 10kgs (R3.70/26p). Just take the bag alone, which probably costs more than that to produce. In the car park that same bag will now cost anything up to Z$600,000. How do you buy that on an average pension of about Z$50,000 a month (R1.20/8p)?
Fuel? Unavailable at any filling station as the set price is $60,000 a litre (R1.42/10p) either you have to go to Botswana and buy it yourself, or find someone who brings it in and pay the equivalent price or US$1.15 a litre if you have foreign currency. This price equates to around Z$345,000. Remember that in August last year three zero’s were taken off the currency.
These are just examples of the difficulties faced, where is the dignity in old age for these proud people?
We now are facing tremendous difficulties sourcing goods to enable us to deliver each and every month. In South Africa, we have a wonderful lady who has already sent by air around 150 kilos of groceries. As I write this she is already planning the next shipment and also has a truck booked which will come in late next month. This of course needs huge amounts of funds, should anyone be willing to contribute directly to her to help us carry on, please contact Dave for details. Also, in the United States an ex Zimbabwean is trying to fill a container with goods for SOAP should anyone like his details please contact Dave also.
As you will see I have modified the table below.I always check out the same shop only, some goods MAY be available in other shops. Interesting to note that toilet rolls had to be reduced from $325,00 a pack of four to $85,000 a pack. They have now allowed an increase to $277,900. It is said that an across the board increase of 200% of the prices ruling at 1st July may be made. Was this a pointless exercise?

(Note) The price table sent with this newletter would not copy/paste.

[bograt]

Where can one find details of their bank accounts etc, etc...

[Chick]

Where can one find details of their bank accounts etc, etc...

queries contact patashnix@btinternet.com (http://us.f527.mail.yahoo.com/ym/Compose?To=patashnix@btinternet.com) (SOAP OVERSEAS Co-ordinator)

Please email Patricia - tell her you got the information on TCB and she will send you a confirmation email back and then bank details..

Thanks for responding.

[nightape]

A worthy cause Chick, well done for posting this. I shall be looking into it.
I am sure there will be many of us wanting to help out where and however we can.

[Chick]

The December delivery was done on Wednesday and for once there was LOADS AND LOADS of stuff. Each person received a personally wrapped gift and the volunteers too. As food has been delivered weekly now from South Africa I was told that there was a wonderful selection in each box. The food shopping and deliveries via RSA are going so well, fingers crossed that it may continue. I am told that there is enough money in the kitty to possibly do January which is a good sign at this time.

Christmas wishes to you and your family.

Kind regards,

Patricia Williams
for SOAP UK

If you would like to make any donation please private message me and I will pass on relevant details........ thanks.

[Springbok]

Well done Chick :smiley20: :smiley32:

[Chick]

Happy New Year to all our SOAP(ies)

Thank you to all of you who kindly responded to the SOS call in early November and carried it through to December. It was a lovely Christmas Box for our golden oldies.

The excerpt of a letter in SOAPS mail is from the wonderful lady who made SOAP 4 SOAP and sent through a lovely donation. She is willing to make and sell soaps giving 10% to SOAP if any of you are interested.

Ideally it would be so nice if we could pledge an amount so that Linda knows that she will get XYZ from us abroad to get on with the shopping. Francis very kind offer of getting the money through to RSA and paying the bank charges still stands. If you would like to send £5 a month regularly (more if you want to!!) please do contact me.

We are not sending parcels at the moment as there are so many still floating around. They have probably grown legs and marched out of the ZW post office!!

The donations of medicines and of seeds that I organised, the last few parcels were through in September (*airmail), to date I haven't heard if they arrived so I am not going to ask for more. All of the medicines and seeds until about August arrived!

Kind regards
Patricia Williams
patashnix@btinternet.com (patashnix@btinternet.com)

[Chick]

Hello SOAP supporters, below is a very sad letter from Dave (SOAP) Bulawayo. It would be wonderful if we could get a regular monthly donation no matter how small from each of us on the mailing list. Francis will get the money to Linda in JHB (and he pays the bank charges) as soon as it comes in. If you are able to pledge a donation so that we can let them know that a regular amount will come it please contact me. Kind regards Patricia Williams for SOAP.


Hi Pat long time no hear!

Right let me tell you about the post! Definitely a no no, now. Please send us the money instead.
Our and Louise's delivery area is Hillside where there is now only one (1) person delivering, all the others have left due to low wages. This year we have only had 2 deliveries of mail to the house. Some local letters are taking three weeks. At the end of January we received 3 parcels posted on the 29th November by air from the UK. The Zimra (customs) stamp was 2nd January so they had been sitting round for almost 4 weeks. We now go to the post office and ask if there are any parcels the last time we received a further 2, one posted in November and another in January! To date we are still waiting for one posted early December. The is a mountain of parcels awaiting delivery at the post office.
One reason is, as you may, know BA pulled out of Harare in November. Now we hear that BA flies the post into Jo'burg it is then flown to Harare for sorting and customs then to Bulawayo, not sure if by road or air. That then arrives at the main post office for sorting again into districts. A recent 'airmail' letter from Port Alfred in SA took 6 weeks to arrive here.
On top of that e-mails are going missing by the dozen. Recently my sister sent three which I never received and my son 6. My sister has e-mailed today and asked if i received her 2 text messages, answer no!
You may have heard we have had three nationwide blackouts that caused major disruption. It is now extremely rare to be able to get onto the internet and as I say the e-mails, well you just have to keep your fingers crossed. As you will have seen I have asked for a read receipt for this, please acknowledge it!
But as I have said I think we still would prefer the money so we can use it as we need.
Linda is still sending the groceries up by air and I am expecting a delivery today. She spends about R8,000 at a time. That has proved to be an excellent system and we have had little trouble with Zimra. Time is what it usually takes and quite a lot of it too!
As for the fuel query, Noczim has no fuel. Byo council for instance said they would empty dustbins monthly to save on fuel, they are not now emptying at all our last collection was 4th January. The council is more or less broke and cannot even afford water treatment chemicals. The tap water is brown and our water filter has to be cleaned every alternate day. The situation in other towns is even worse. You now have to queue in the revenue hall just to get your accounts as they are also short of staff and cannot deliver. Roads have huge pot holes and residents have been asked to fill them in with rubble. Remember, ours is an efficient council!
Posted one letter to the uk on Monday, cost $6,900,000! (don't forget the three noughts that were dropped in 2006). Fuel for individuals is now only available in forex by coupons, otherwise, if paying in Z$ it is about double price. Milk doubled in price this week to $7.5 million a litre, a dozen eggs costs about 20 million. bread 4.5 million.The Z$ dropped dramatically on Tuesday I hear about 50%, the R is about R1 to 1,5000,000. So the £ must be about 20,000,000 to 1. Prices rise almost daily and this crash will again force up prices, even the government admits to 66,000% inflation, IMF says 150,000%.
If you need more info just let me know. That is if I haven't depressed you enough already!
Anyway that's all from me we are in Harare for this weekend.
Hope you are all well Dave.

[Chick]

Dear Friends and Donors,
Another update from SOAP here in Bulawayo.
How people are managing to carry on with life is beyond comprehension. Inflation is said to be over a million percent a year. As the Zimbabwe Dollar continues its’ ever-downward spiral, prices are rising at least on a daily basis. The shops are virtually empty, without our food parcels pensioners would be starving. We are having to make plan after plan to get food imported each and everyday. We have, since May, received monthly donations of fresh fruit and vegetables from ‘Homes in Zimbabwe’ a Manchester based charity which is of tremendous help. Prices of the small amount of goods available in the shops are ridiculous, at yesterdays exchange rate a bottle of orange cordial cost over £9! This month milk started off at Z$2 billion a litre today it costs almost Z$54 billion. There seems to be no plan in place to even try to make inflation stable never mind reducing it. Just the printing more and more ‘money’. Our largest note is now 50 billion Z$ enough perhaps to buy a loaf of bread or almost half a litre of milk. Even if you have the money in the bank you are only allowed to withdraw 100 billion dollars each day.
The civil service pensioners were given a pay increase at the beginning of June from 20 million to 1billion 200 million, as you can see it will not buy anything.
In June, 6 of our recipients passed away one lady whilst I was delivering her parcel, not a pleasant experience.
For July delivery, we added 5 more people to our list. One, a family of three, the wife suffers from Epilepsy. The husband works and earns Z$1.4trillion a month of which almost half goes in deductions. His wife is on several types of medication one of which costs 1,062 South African Rands a month, at today’s exchange rate this is a staggering nine trillion and 27 million Z$. How an earth can he manage to pay this? Simply put he just borrows money and is constantly in debt. We are now delivering a monthly grocery parcel to the family, the day after delivery I was told that they had breakfast for the first time in three months. Unfortunately because they are not pensioners, other organisations that supply medication and help with rents etc., are not able to help them. Because we are an independent organisation we are able to asses each case on its’ own merits.

[Chick]

Dear Friends and Donors,
Where to start?
Since the last update in July, we have, once more, another ‘new’ currency, which was introduced on the 1st August.
This time, TEN zeros where lopped off and the old coins once more became legal tender and $5 was worth 5 billion old Zim dollars. Pensioners who were receiving meagre pensions of around 60 million no longer receive anything as that amounts now to a fraction of a cent. Already, every single commodity is in the tens of thousands of dollars. Since this introduction, more notes of higher values have been produced we now have a $1,000, $10,000 and this week $50,000.
Almost all businesses will not accept a cheque, cash only. The maximum withdrawl this week was raised to Z$50,000 each day. What will that buy after standing for several hours in a queue at the bank? Minced beef at Z$90,000 a kilo? Obviously not. Bread at Z$17,000 a loaf, 6 eggs at Z$20,000 and perhaps one potato at Z$90,000 a kilo. Then queue again the next day. Never mind paying large accounts of utilities bills or perhaps buying your life saving medication (if you can afford it). Just one American dollar at the time of writing is worth around Z$16,000 (Z$160,000,000,000,000 before 1st August, not forgetting to add the three zero’s taken off in ‘06). In 1980 the Z$ was equal in value to the US$.
Shops are almost empty, what goods are available for payment in Zim dollars are at ridiculous prices as the shopkeeper tries to hedge against inflation estimated at over
1 TRILLION percent. How about a tin of beans for the equivalent of US$80?
In this climate, ‘Rand’ shops have sprung up in the most unlikely places. Some selling from private homes. These charge on average a 100% mark up on the South African price. Fine if you have access to foreign currency, if not you can’t buy.
Where then does this leave ‘our’ pensioners? No income, no transport to cross border shop?
S.O.A.P., here in Bulawayo is working hard to procure goods from South Africa and we have also had to start buying from one of the new importers. Luckily, because we are buying in bulk we get a special discount and pay a 60% mark up. As can be imagined this has increased our overheads dramatically.
With bereavements and people moving away, in October, we supplied food to 173 needy pensioners but these numbers do increase by 5 or 6 each month. ‘Our’ recipients will need help for the rest of their lives whatever happens.
As always, we stress that it is YOU that enable us to carry on distributing groceries because of YOUR generosity. We thank YOU all once more for giving ‘our’ pensioners a little dignity and some hope in these very trying times.

Thank you and God bless you all.

[jiggs]

Thanks for that up date - really sad.