Durban’s Denis Hurley Centre (DHC) is making final preparations for the annual meal of reconciliation, where hundreds of homeless people join members of the public for a shared sit-down meal on Tuesday. 

It is also South Africa’s National Day of Reconciliation, which came into effect in 1995 with the intention of fostering reconciliation and national unity for the country.

Director of DHC, Raymond Perrier, said that the DHC founder, Paddy Kearney, first re-imagined a new way of marking this important date in an article he wrote in the 1980s.

“After Liberation, President Mandela took up the idea, and now the Day of Reconciliation is a very moving part of our year as a nation,” he said. 

Perrier said there was no better way to mark the day because this was a unique opportunity for all kinds of Durbanites to sit down and share a meal: the homeless and the housed, South Africans and foreign nationals, all colours, all religions, and all ages.

Being the DHC, there will be an interfaith dimension, as donors will be from the Christian, Muslim, Hindu, and Jewish communities

“When there is so much division in our city and in the world, this is an opportunity to bond. There will be tables of 10 people. We will be serving a range of breyani to suit every religion,” he said. 

Perrier added that the DHC is a place that provides a safe welcome to people in the city who are excluded, who feel marginalised, people who are treated as invisible, as if they did not exist.

He said approximately 300 homeless people come to the centre daily. He said last year they prepared 185,000 meals. 

“This would not be possible without the volunteers. We also have a sandwich project going on for five years, five days a week. We work with people of all faith traditions to serve some of the poorest people in central Durban,” he said. 

“In particular, we help homeless people, drug users, the urban unemployed, and refugees with the respect and honour we all deserve as children of one God. We offer service through our clinic, feeding scheme, political and economic empowerment, community support, and pastoral outreach,” he lamented. 

Volunteers can arrive at 8.30am to decorate the halls. Meals will be served from 11am. 

Safe parking is provided behind the Cathedral or beneath the Victoria Street Market.

zainul.dawood@inl.co.za

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