Mapula Sibanda
PIETER MAYISELA was starting to lose hope of ever finding his younger sister, Fikile, who left their rural home in 1991 at the age of 19 to seek her fortune in the cities.
“We are a family of 12 and our ageing parents do not work any more,” says Mayisela. “It is customary for teenagers from rural areas to leave for the cities in search of jobs to improve their standard of living. I came to the city when I was 17 years old.”
Originally from a rural area near Piet Retief, Mayisela now works as a distributor for Boksburg’s Clover Dairies. He says the family started to worry when his sister stayed away for almost two years without contacting them.
“We spent a lot of money trying to track her down around Piet Retief, only to learn that she was working somewhere in Verwoerdburg, near Pretoria. So then it was up to me to track her down.
“At first I had no idea where to look, as I had never been anywhere near Pretoria since coming to the East Rand 10 years ago.”
He had no luck with his inquiries, until one day he noticed a message on a box of Lion matches: “Lost touch with friends or family? We can help to reunite you.”
Mayisela followed the instructions on the box, filling in forms which he obtained at the store where he usually buys his groceries. “About three months later, in January, someone I know from home brought me the most wonderful news: Fikile had paid them a visit, and it was my plea that was responsible for her homecoming.”
Mayisela’s request had been passed on by Lion Matches to the division of the company responsible for broadcasting such messages on various radio services.
“To know that she will be with the rest of the family for Christmas this year makes me very grateful to Lion Matches,” he says. “I even wrote a letter to thank them. Before I found my sister, I was constantly tortured by thoughts of the horrible things that might be happening to her in a strange city. Now I have the telephone number of where she works in Pretoria and I communicate with her regularly.”
Mayisela’s story is one of many happy tales in Wilkinson’s Lion Matches Find-an-old-friend promotion, which assists people in their search for friends and relatives. Since October last year, the service has received between 400 and 700 requests a month from all corners of the country.
Michael Caminsky, Lion’s public relations officer, says the company considered a number of social-responsibility schemes before deciding on the Find-an-old-friend service, because it would reunite people after the troubled times South Africa has experienced. The company drew in the co-operation of radio stations, magazines and newspapers.
Radio Xhosa has taken the promotion further, broadcasting numerous heart-rending pleas from listeners. People call in to tell their estranged relatives to come home. Some cry and some scold as they plead with the prodigals to return — and this has often proved more successful than the reading out of forms.
Lion has not been able to measure the success of its service in terms of the few letters people have written to let it know that they have been reunited. “The only real measure of our success is the number of requests we receive every month,” says Caminsky.