School food drives go a long way
Nourishing early childhood development
POOR education is one of the direct drivers of the 40% unemployment rate in South Africa.
Hunger, poverty and lack of access to effective pre-school, primary school, and secondary school education services means that for millions of caregivers being able to provide for their children’s healthy development and education is an impossible hope.
For children to be able to develop and learn, key requirements are that they are healthy enough to concentrate and absorb teaching, and that they receive quality stimulation for meaningful education outcomes.
The National School Nutrition Programme (NSNP) provides daily meals to the poorest primary and secondary schools in South Africa to encourage attendance and alleviate hunger so that children can learn. Meals in schools have proven benefits globally of increasing enrolment, attendance and concentration.
The NSNP does not, however, cater for children in their pre-school years.
Early childhood development centres (ECDCs) for pre-schoolers may register and qualify for a subsidy from the Department of Social Development (DSD), which includes a portion for nutrition. The barriers for centres to qualify for the grant are significant, including costly infrastructure requirements. There are also fiscal constraints to the number of ECDCs that can be supported by DSD. Yet unregistered centres provide crucial care for the most marginalised of children in remote and poorly served communities.
Care through mechanisms such as unregistered centres, home-based care, outreach efforts, mobile programmes, and early learning playgroups are all that are available to at least 66% of children 0-5 years in South Africa. At the same time they currently have extremely limited means to offer the crucial nutrition that can allow learning to take place.
In South Africa, 25% of children under 5 are stunted due to malnutrition and thus start school with a compromised capacity to process new information and learn.
A recent and compelling report by DG Murray Trust underscores the diminishing returns invested in higher education in South Africa directly due to the neglected foundation years.
Only an estimated 30% of children receive quality education in early childhood in South Africa.
The shortfall is disastrous for development because the quality of care and nutrition a child receives in early childhood founds their later capacities and performance, not only as older children, but also as adults.
Strengthening early childhood development in South Africa requires not only nutritional support and stimulation for early learning, but social services, maternal and child health services, and caregiver support.
A dynamic approach is needed, with robust collaboration between the public and private sector and between non-government, non-profit, community-based organisations.
Non-profit organisations like the Lunchbox Fund actively address the need for quality nutrition in the ECD sector with the aim of facilitating children’s attendance and development in the critical foundation years. The key to ensuring the Lunchbox Fund’s nutrition has impact, is their partnerships with other non-government organisations that are dedicated to reaching the most marginalised children, early childhood care and stimulation – such as those offering the SmartStart franchise training.
SmartStart is an innovative public-private partnership aimed at supporting and extending quality early learning to the poorest percentage of the country’s children under the age of five.
It empowers unemployed men and women to set up, run and manage early learning playgroups and become licensed ECD practitioners.
The provision of fortified meals directly to these playgroups increases enrolment and attendance and means children are not hungry and can participate. Early childhood collaborative interventions reaching marginalised children with quality nutrition plus simulation and care are an essential foundation to breaking the country’s inter-generational cycles of poverty, unsustainable livelihoods, and unemployment. Misselhorn is director of research at the Lunchbox Fund.