Janine Parker (49), a woman with a natural entrepreneurial sense and a way with words, makes enough money to stay alive, while living on the streets.
“I see it as a special talent,” she laughs, “they’re inspirational messages.”
Janine makes and sells bookmarks with inspiring quotes and emergency numbers printed on them. With the help of Quality Copy in Stellenbosch, these bookmarks are printed and laminated, ready for her to sell to the public.
It’s almost dark and Janine is sitting on a wooden bench outside the Neelsie Student Centre.
“I’m not a bookmark saleslady,” she says, “this was an idea I had, these bookmarks.”
She takes out a bouquet of multi-coloured strips. “As I’m flipping through them, people may see something they like. If they…show more content… I say to them; you don’t have to use it as a functional item.”
Janine sips her coffee. “My daily routine? It’s always bookmarks.”
Janine sells these bookmarks to the public as it’s her only source of income. Though she tells of how business is not necessarily booming. “These bookmarks are exhausted in this area, there’s hardly a person we haven’t approached,” she says. “We are thinking of perhaps doing bumper stickers now.”
Janine says she is being protected by a higher power and she is on this journey for a reason. “But I’m idling at the moment.
“Nothing is happening, but I’m not disillusioned. I’m going to elevate myself out of this situation by doing what I’m doing.” She pauses slightly.
“It’s going to come solely by meeting the right person that can recognise something in me,” she smiles.
Like the majority of us, Janine just wants some kind of validation. “Somebody out there could see a quality in me, that I could be helpful to them,” she says, “It’s about finding security and getting something out of life.”
What differentiates Janine from other homeless people is that she wasn’t born into poverty. She was born and raised in Plumstead, a southern suburb in Cape Town, by a single
