WOMEN'S MONTH NEWS - Claudine Damon-Patel has been in service to the Mossel Bay community for over 20 years. 

An activist, NPO founder and writer, Damon-Patel is a busy woman.

Through her NPO alone, she has multiple projects operating simultaneously. From providing young girls with sanitary pads and donating school shoes, to providing essential toiletries for mothers and their babies and starting a support group for mothers of children with special needs, she is undoubtedly giving back to her community. 

The school shoes donations started recently when her son, Ezra, noticed a girl in the community who had cut open the toe caps of her shoes.

Claudine had to explain to him the girl had done that because her shoes were too small for her, upon which he made her promise they would get the girl some new ones at the start of the school year. 

Expecting that he would forget, Claudine agreed. But just before the school term started in January, Ezra reminded her.

Claudine first donated five pairs of shoes to some children in the community. Eventually, five grew to be 100 as the project grew. 

Helping young women is another passion of Claudine’s. She told Mossel Bay Advertiser of an incident involving a young girl who did not have access to proper sanitary products when her menstrual cycle occurred, and had to use a piece of cloth instead. 

The girl refused to go to school, fearing that her classmates would tease her. Claudine stepped in and began providing sanitary towels to the girls in Asla Park, KwaNonqaba, a practice she maintains today.

When asked if she had a message for the other women in Mossel Bay, she replied: “Women are the backbone to our communities, the very core of what is keeping them afloat and running smoothly." 

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