Tag Archive for: Community Service

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].

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 first month, in September 2020, we came together to make sandwiches for the poor, with the theme of ‘Nobody Should Go Hungry’. We set up a sandwich stations in our boardroom and kitchen, and made different kinds of sandwiches which we then distributed to the needy in the surrounding area. We have posted pictures of the activity below.

Sandwich station in the Relocation Africa head office boardroom.

Sandwich station in our downstairs kitchen.

Our team gathered outside the office, ready for distribution.

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].