Child feeding program provides food security to thousands of orphans in South Africa

South Africa, December 2014  - Civic and business leaders along with civil society groups have joined efforts in starting a child feeding program to reach out to orphaned children in South Africa.  The program, which is an offshoot of another project, is gaining momentum and more support from various sectors.

The initiative, spearheaded by TIPS-South Africa under Director Sonja de Wet, is a result of a bakery project which aims to establish small business start-ups across rural areas in South Africa.

The child feeding program is also called Project Hope, meant to call attention to the situation of orphaned children in South Africa who are in need of help, nutrition and health-wise.

According to Director de Wet, “Children are the future of South Africa and they, especially the orphaned children, deserve all the attention and care.”

The child feeding program has already benefited thousands of children. Daily, 1000 children get their meals at designated stations and at the children’s schools.  At present, the program is being implemented in the northern rural communities of Pretoria, where the first bakery business-start up was launched early this year.   Five  more bakeries will be opened next year, each of which will be responsible  for  having  a child feeding program   catering to 1,000 children.  All in all, the feeding program aims to feed 6,000 children in selected rural communities.

Project Hope gets support from one of South Africa’s leading banks, Nedbank, whose officials take special interest in ensuring the success of the project.  In one of their field visits to the child feeding stations, they identified some gaps for which they suggested solutions.  The bank’s officials plan to get more support for the children, and expand the coverage of the project to more children in more communities.  The succeeding stage of the present child feeding program will include handing out to children some personal items, school bags and other paraphernalia, as well as character development through individual counseling and mentoring.

Meanwhile, flour for the bakery project  cum child feeding program is donated by White River Flour Mills.  A local dry goods supplier, Ecozymes, has also extended material support to the project.  As education is important in the character development of children, Evangelism Explosion, a Church volunteer organization, will provide counseling as well as guidance to the children. Volunteer-mothers also play the role of parents to these children, thereby making them feel not left out but well taken care of, just like having their own family.

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