By Loushe Jordaan Gilbert

The Voice of the Cape (VOC) Radio was abuzz on Tuesday as people flocked to the station to take full advantage of its first free community services day.

Listeners had the opportunity to personally engage with the South African Social Security Agency (SASSA), the Western Cape Education Department (WCED), the City of Cape Town (COCT) and the Western Cape Blood Services (WCBS).

An array of services were available, from checking the application status of your SASSA grants, changing to a different bank account, checking if you qualify for a rate rebate or one of the grants the COCT has in place to assist those experiencing financial difficulties, to admissions for the upcoming academic year and signing up as a blood donor, all under one roof at absolutely no cost.

Speaking to people who took full advantage of meeting the staff of VOC while utilizing the services offered, this was some of the feedback received.

“We got more help today than we ever did from standing in long queues at places such as SASSA and the COCT. This is truly something remarkable that VOC has done for us,” exclaimed a recipient.

“I have been struggling since 2016 to even have someone from the COCT take a look at my issues, my electricity bill was insanely high, and I could not understand why, but today it was sorted out right before my eyes, saving me thousands, so I am extremely happy,” another recipient explained.

Appeals have come in across the board for VOC to host more community service days.

“We need more of these events, it helped us a lot because most of the time we go to branches and we just get a token number, most times we are told to come back the next day, and even then, there is no guarantee that we will be helped. Today we were all helped, with no systems crashing and no attitude from officials. We were treated with dignity and respect and that to me meant a lot,” added a beneficiary.

VOC Station Manager Goolam Fakier said this is one of the many initiatives that VOC plans to have to assist the community.

“We will have many more of these initiatives as we can see from yesterday’s outcome that it is a service that is required and we at the VOC aim to fulfil our mandate which is to serve our community. We will share all details as to when we will host another event but what I can say is, our team is hard at work to ensure that more service providers join in our quest to bring services to the community,” he ended.