Itlhokomeleng Home For The Aged

In 1978, Majorie Manganye, started a project with  a group of concerned women to assist the aged and needy in Alexandra township. In 1984, Itlhokomeleng, which means “Help yourselves”, was registered as a welfare organisation. The Sandton Rotary Club and Anglo-American jointly bought some land and erected temporary houses for the aged in 1988 and in 1992, following some major additions, the project now has a permanent home and bears the Majorie Manganye Frail-Care Centre.

Manganye now cares for scores of elderly people, although she herself is older than some of charges.   Most of the people living in the Frail-Care Centre were among the first Africans to own land in Alexandra. Their extended families were left behind in the rural areas, and now they do not have anyone to take care of them in their old age. The centre has an arts and crafts project that produces items for sale, and an outreach project that visits members of the Alexandra community who are ill or in need of assistance. Mama Marj, as Manganye is affectionately called, has been caring for the Alexandra community for over four decades with her age-defying energy and caring attitude endearing her to thousands of Alexandra residents.