A faction of the white population of South Africa lives in poverty, like many Africans in ghettos color on the country. Once eligible as a result of the policy of apartheid, now they are facing the same problems.
Red Dust province of South Africa's Highveld looks like a mist over Munsieville-n, camp located just an hour from Johannesburg metropolis. Barefoot children play with any thing to find before the barracks where they live. Unemployed adults sit on benches in front apartments, because if locked inside temperature is unbearable. Such a scene was common for families of blacks during the apartheid era.
For many, living conditions have not improved since the country declared constitutional equality in 1994.
Du Preez Leigh, founder of the Family Assistance Project in South Africa (SAFRP), says that policies designed to fix decades of forced inequality have not had the desired effect.
But she is not talking about color families. Du Preez says that more and more white were unemployed and hungry, forced to save themselves in the middle of growing racial tensions.
"We are losing our jobs because of the color of our skin, because we are white," said Du Preez to "Deutsche Welle".
Less than 10 percent of the population is white, referring to the census of 2014 and less than 10% of whites live in that kind of poverty, which requires the help of "SAFRP" operation.
Therefore, not a surprise when Du Preez says he has little interest in the issue of increasing poverty among whites. She says that colored population gets all the attention and assistance.
"People think this can not be true, but so my people live," said Du Preez as she goes door to door in the camp of the Munsieville's diffuse, listening to their concerns residents.
it stinks everywhere
Built in a place where gather debris, which offers free camp is the biggest project's SAFRP, with more than 300 families that live in the neighborhood adjacent to each other.
"Here before there was nothing. There were no sanitary conditions, water or electricity.Now it has a portable toilet for every three families. Stinks everywhere, "she said, adding that the lack of hygienic conditions has to grow diseases such as bronchitis, pneumonia or infections leather.
There is white conditions of camp residents in Munsieville are worse than those of the black community. Rather, most of the residents of their towns, also are suffering to survive.
"They all are trying to make this place livable as possible that, with any little thing that", said Marius Du Preez, Leigh's husband.
From luxury to rags
When mariusi lost his job a few years ago, Du Preez family ended up in a camp almost free as he Munsieville's. "If it would not be for friends and family where you will be our reality," said Leigh. "So I feel compelled to do something. The government does nothing for us. Well, we have to help our own people. "
She is proud that SAFRP takes donations as blacks as well as whites. But most, by its exterior.
"Sometimes to have to lose everything that could arise again on foot to assess what they have," said Estelle Floo, one of the camp residents.
She indicated that her husband lost his job when the company where he worked, underwent the process of "Black Economic Empowerment" (BEE), a government initiative designed to give most jobs, people "previously disadvantaged" , it is called the black community.
The couple and their children share a barracks with their friends, Alfonso Ferreira and Christina Du Toit.
"We will not stay here forever, but government policy" BEE "is destroying us," said Alfonso Ferreira. "If you convince yourself to live here with these conditions, then flounder. But if you work hard to prosper, then would come a day ".
hope remains
Fifteen-year-old Irene van Niekerk may have started its journey in life. A pretty lady runner, Irene, has won 32 medals in championships throughout the province. The community has high hopes for "sprinter camp free", the nickname she summoned.
Not long ago, Irene received a foreign reporter who suggested that poor whites may deserve to stay in such conditions, since for decades benefited from apartheid rule.
Du Preez has heard this argument before. "I understand when foreigners say these things about us. But they do not realize that apartheid was to create poverty. He was power and control, and yes, it was something bad. " But she added: "Now we have more free camps for blacks under the current government than we had during apartheid. Furthermore we have and these free camps for whites. And how is it better? "
The charity also distributes food and clothing during the winter, especially for small impoverished communities.
Du Preez explains that there are about 500 informal settlements of whites across South Africa. It emphasizes that no one will help them. Its concern with the government eclipsed only by the desire to improve the lives of people in need. She says South Africa is heading in the same manner as Zimbabwe. Activist refers to land policies of President Robert Mugabe, who has given many whites without a source of income, after he has given to local African farms.
"Nelson Mandela said the South will not see ever more apartheid. Now, we are living the same thing again, but find ourselves on the other side. "
