As I announced last week, February being the month of love, I am avoiding anything negative this month and focus on the positive.
After all, “The Secret” tells us ad nauseam that the energy we put out there envelops you and if you really read the scriptures irrespective what denomination, you will find one universal truth.
You need ever only know one of the 10 Commandments: "Love thy neighbour". If you adhere and respect this commandment in everything you do, you will never falter on any of the other nine.
I hear you ponder how is Carlos Mesquita going to keep this promise when I am virtually always the critic.
Easily because it's not at all foreign to me, what is foreign is that so many have fallen into the "homeless economy" that they have forgotten who they are meant to be serving.
And no, I am not proving you right with the previous paragraph. But I will now focus on love. I am starting off where this involvement of mine as columnist for the Cape Argus started. It was birthed because and understand because of one man's love.
After Strandfontein, we, a group of 168 that took the City of Cape Town to court and won the right to be accommodated and provided with services after Strandfontein closed.
But after closing down the Strandfontein camp, the City of Cape Town stayed in defiance of the court order for almost another 3 months.
And one man, Lorenzo Davids, then-CEO of Community Chest, loved his neighbour as God expects us to love one another. And not knowing us at all handed over their 4 storey offices in Bree street.
During the 2 and a half years it was open, we moved 403 individuals off the street into transitional and independent living.
It closed because the City of Cape Town did not believe in "housing first". "It will never work in South Africa.
This was a very difficult period for myself and especially Lorenzo, being answerable to a board. It completely changed the relationship we had slowly grown into those past couple of months.
A week ago, I posted on social media that I had received the shock of my life when an email arrived that informed me I have been nominated for the prestigious International Centre for Journalists.
And again, like when I experienced the crisis a yea ago with TRC, the first person to offer me support was someone acting on Lorenzo's behalf. This time his congratulations on my nomination came in a personal message which I attach exceptional value to.
And so, for those who have never known the genesis of this journey that myself and the group of 168 that fought the City for our rights to where many of us are today, and for those that had forgotten because so much has happened in such a short while.
Thank you, Lorenzo Davids, for loving more!
* Carlos Mesquita.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.
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