Andrew Stegmann
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School That Grows its Own Food Feeds Hundreds Daily

Levana Primary School in Lavender Hill is one of 1010 Western Cape schools that depend on government’s National School Nutrition Programme (NSNP) feeding scheme. The school has 1090 learners. Only half of them attend at any one time because of rotational classes introduced due to Covid-19, but “those children must still eat”, says Shamiega Charity, Acting Principal at Levana Primary.

Before the pandemic, she says they were feeding 300 to 400 children. The numbers have doubled. Once the learners are fed, any remaining food is distributed to the community. At the start of the lockdown, the school would feed up to 800 children and people in the community. “We would run out of food,” she said. A grade 7 learner told GroundUp that she will sometimes take a loaf of bread home for her family.

Lavender Hill has “severe poverty”, gangsterism, unemployment and substance abuse, says Charity. Teenage pregnancies are “the norm once you leave primary school” and “because the parents are young, they don’t know how to be a parent”. Most learners live in crowded shacks, some located right next to the school’s bulletproof fence. Children need clothes and food to take home; teachers assist where they can, she says.

Levana Primary was established in 1977 and is a no-fee school. The feeding scheme started over 13 years ago with peanut butter and bread. Today, the school has two organic vegetable gardens growing lettuce, potatoes and spring onions. There is also a medicinal and fynbos garden. As an eco school, environmental issues and sustainability are taught as part of the syllabus.

The food is sponsored by a network of organisations and people, but it is largely dependent on the NSNP. “The program provides funding to the school to purchase the required cooking equipment and eating utensils, as well as for the monthly gas purchases for cooking. There are two food preparers funded by the NSNP, as well as three gardeners to assist with food production,” says Kerry Mauchline, spokesperson for education MEC Debbie Schäfer.

The NSNP provides dry food items to the school every second week and fresh produce such as fruit, vegetables and milk twice a week. Five days a week children are fed two meals a day. On Monday, it’s fish breyani, Tuesday, samp and beans, Wednesdays and Thursday, vegetables, and Friday, soup or breyani.

“For many of these children, a school meal might be the only one they have that day,” says Mauchline. The situation has got dramatically worse because of the Covid-19 pandemic. In the Western Cape, 473 174 learners are registered on the program, she says. Children can’t focus on learning if they are hungry, says Charity. She says one day she would like there to be a food dining hall where the children can sit together and eat around a table.

 

For information as to how Relocation Africa can help you with your Mobility, Immigration, Research, Remuneration, and Expat Tax needs, email info@relocationafrica.com, or call us on +27 21 763 4240.

Sources: [1], [2]. Image sources: [1], [2].

Andrew Stegmann
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British Airways Reopens Domestic Flights in South Africa

Comair has opened bookings for domestic British Airways flights in South Africa.

The airline said it plans to begin serving all the domestic British Airways’ routes it previously operated from 9 December. Comair said that regional services will be reintroduced as it ramps up to full operations over the next few months.

“With reservations for the British Airways’ flights open we’re now able to offer bookings on a considerably expanded schedule. “As well as giving customers the choice of booking on either of our airline brands and a greater range of competitive fares, they now also have the option of booking in business class,” said Glenn Orsmond, representing the Comair Rescue Consortium.

The reintroduction of British Airways’ flights will also see the reopening of the group’s SLOW lounges. Initially, the domestic lounges at King Shaka International, Cape Town International and OR Tambo International will open. The other lounges will reopen as the flight schedule expands.

Comair introduced the British Airways’ brand to domestic and regional routes in South and Southern Africa in 1996 when it signed a franchise agreement with the UK’s largest carrier. It has been British Airways’ most successful franchise.

“British Airways’ ongoing support is a huge vote of confidence in the future of Comair,” said Orsmond. Discovery Vitality has also resumed its agreement with kulula.com as has FNB’s eBucks rewards programme arrangement with Comair. Orsmond says that Comair will initially operate a fleet of fifteen aircraft across both airline brands gradually increasing as the remainder of the fleet returns to service over the next few months.

 

For information as to how Relocation Africa can help you with your Mobility, Immigration, Research, Remuneration, and Expat Tax needs, email info@relocationafrica.com, or call us on +27 21 763 4240.

Sources: [1], [2]. Image sources: [1], [2].

Andrew Stegmann
,

South African Government Plans to Update the Country’s ID System

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa’s cabinet has approved the Official Identity Management Policy for public comment.

In a recent media briefing, minister in the Presidency Jackson Mthembu said that the policy proposes a number of changes to existing legislation including the Identification Act and Alteration of Sex Description and Sex Status Act, to align them with the Constitution and the Protection of Personal Information Act.

“It also proposes the integration of the national population register to enable a single view of a person with features to interface with other government and private sector identity management systems,” Mthembu said.

“It will integrate the current systems into a biometric-enabled National Identity System. The new proposed population register will form the basis of an official e-identity which will serve as the backbone of state and private digital platforms.”

In June 2019, International Relations and Cooperation minister Naledi Pandor said that the government is working on a new ID system that will provide a single source of information about all clients, using both biographic and biometric technologies.

“The new national identity system South Africa seeks to build will serve as a master source for civics and immigration management,” she said.

“The modernisation of South Africa’s Home Affairs, when fully and successfully implemented, will re-engineer and automate most of the key processes of the department and yield a significantly enhanced national identification system, and a credible national population register.”

Pandor said that some of the key elements of the system include:

  • Records of persons throughout their lifespan;
  • Birth, marriage and death records of residents (citizens, permanent residents, asylum seekers and refugees);
  • All persons entering the country will have their biometrics captured during the visa application process or at the point of entry;
  • Processing and storing of asylum seekers and refugees’ applications;
  • Records of visitors who enter and leave the country;
  • Records of illegal persons in the country.

 

For information as to how Relocation Africa can help you with your Mobility, Immigration, Research, Remuneration, and Expat Tax needs, email info@relocationafrica.com, or call us on +27 21 763 4240.

Sources: [1], [2]. Image sources: [1], [2].

Andrew Stegmann
,

Relocation Africa’s Monthly Social Responsibility Project, Month 3: Book Drive

As part of our constant drive to give back to our community, our team has endeavored to join together to participate in a monthly community-focused CSR initiative. The team comes together each month to participate in an activity aimed at uplifting the community around our head office in Cape Town, after which ideas are put forward for the following month’s initiative.

In this way, as South Africans, we are giving back not only on Mandela Day, but throughout the year, as the need doesn’t end after the holiday.

Naturally, we take all necessary COVID-19-related precautions when participating in the activities, so as to ensure the health and safety of our team members and those we are interacting with outside our office.

For our third month, in November 2020, we came together to collect books, with the theme of ‘Literature & Education are Vital’. We invited our neighbors to join us in collecting books they no longer needed, and dropping them off at our office’s reception. We then handed them over to charity Help the Rural Child.

Help the Rural Child is a chain of charity shops that support the Goedgedacht Path Onto Prosperity Rural Youth Centres. Help the Rural Child, through its charity shops, is doing its bit to help these children break out of the endless cycles of poverty that have trapped their parents for so many generations. Help the Rural Child has nine shops at present: two bookshops, one in Mowbray and one in Kirstenhof; four clothing and bric a brac shops in Mowbray, Retreat, Sea Point and Cape Town CBD; a furniture shops in Retreat and a Mobile Bookshop that goes out to schools. Their newest edition, connected to the Mobile Bookshop, is The Children’s Bookshop in Mowbray.

Their shops are all run with two staff members and a wonderful group of volunteers. All the stock of books, bric-a-brac, clothing, furniture and household goods are donated by the very supportive Cape Town public. We are pleased that we could be part of one of these donations.

 

Gallery

We hope this inspires our readers and other companies to start similar initiatives, as if we all work together, we can greatly improve the quality of life of those in need around us.

 

For information as to how Relocation Africa can help you with your Mobility, Immigration, Research, Remuneration, and Expat Tax needs, email info@relocationafrica.com, or call us on +27 21 763 4240.

Sources: [1], [2]. Image sources: [1], [2].