Helping those less fortunate
OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY TRAINING ORGANISATION Action Training Academy (ATA) has become increasingly involved with its corporate social responsibility programme at the Itlhokomeleng Association for the Aged and Disabled.
For the past three years ATA has committed itself to providing free fire fighting, first aid, evacuation planning and health and safety training to the home's nurses and other staff. Run by sister Marjorie Manganye and based in Alexandra in Johannesburg, ATA has also been servicing fire fighting equipment on a yearly basis, as well as putting together their evacuation plan and running evacuation drills for the home should an emergency arise.
 In addition, ATA has equipped the clinic with extra fire extinguishers, serviced the fire hydrants and installed additional directional safety signage and trained approximately 30 staff members to enable the establishment to be compliant with OHS standards. They service the equipment once a year, free of charge and their paramedic and fire fighter trainers conduct evacuation drills at the clinic, to keep the staff up to date with emergency procedures.
With the recent spate of old age homes and private residences being damaged by fires, ATA has also pledged to host regular fire safety talks for community members to attend free of charge at Itlhokomeleng's community centre. The talks will cover topics such as fire safety in the home, how to prevent fires, what to do in an emergency situation, the correct emergency numbers to contact in case of a fire and how best to handle different types of fire.
Their fire fighters hope to assist local community members in understanding the dangers of misuse of candles in the home, the correct and safe use of gas and paraffin stoves, dangers of overloading electrical applicances and sockets, the different numbers to call for medical and fire emergencies and how to extinguish different types of household fires, for example oil electrical and gas fires; as well as what to do in the case of an injury.
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Itlhokomeleng Association for the Aged and Disabled
The clinic is a home for destitute pensioners from the township of Alexandra and the surrounding areas. Founded in 1978 by Manganye and registered as a welfare organization in 1984, the home as grown to accommodate 90 elderly people, of which 60% are in the centre's frail care unit.
The home aims to accommodate all disabled people, regardless of age or race and provides shelter for destitute people living in Alexandra, frail care to the sick and elderly and medical access for the community, particularly in the areas of preventitive healthcare.
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