Rising against hunger and poverty
IT IS insufferable to know that there are still thousands of children in South Africa living below the poverty line.
These children come from communities where most people are either unemployed or receive little income and are unable to provide regular balanced meals to their children.
This has a ripple effect on a multitude of social ills that can be alleviated with the simple provision of a meal.
A child can only thrive in an environment where they are provided with the nutrition to feed their minds and bodies, as well as psychological and emotional nurturing.
When children live in abject poverty, they struggle with learning and most often cannot aspire to anything beyond the now.
The instinct to survive dominates and trumps all sense of ambition and education takes a permanent back seat.
Rise Against Hunger, an international NPO, aims to alleviate poverty by 2030 through mentorship, skills training and provision of packed meals.
Rise Against Hunger feeds 75000 children in unregistered ECD centres throughout the Western Cape.
These are primarily in underprivileged communities where the parents have little to no income and cannot afford to place their children into schools.
Rise Against Hunger provides these informal centres with meals and encourages the staff to undergo the necessary training to operate as legitimate centres that can be recognised by the government and potentially receive funding to help them develop more.
This includes training facilitation, sponsorship, infrastructure refurbishment and staffing to ensure they are sustainable and legitimate.
Since its inception in 2006, Rise for Hunger has provided more than 22 million meals. “As a father myself, this has so much impact on me as an individual. There are kids who go for days without food and it’s heart-breaking to know that this is happening in your own backyard.
“With more people coming on board we can make a major impact,” said Amien Isaacs, marketing and events co-ordinator for the Western Cape branch of Rise Against Hunger.
On the 10th day of Heart FM’s #16DaysForYouth initiative,15000 meals were packed by 40 volunteers and Heart FM crew members to be distributed to the remaining destinations of this initiative.
“We’re halfway through our journey and are about to traverse through poor communities like Kleinmond, Genadendal and Hermanus, touching lives,” said Denver Appollus, programme manager of Heart FM.
More than 3 million South African children suffer from malnutrition, most in KwaZulu-Natal.
More people die from malnutrition in African than from malaria, HIV/ Aids and TB combined.