HUNGRY FOR KNOWLEDGE
SA’s starving students
● A first-year student waits in a queue at the University of Johannesburg (UJ) Kingsway campus for a plate of samp and beef stew.
The 18-year-old is among 16,000 students who receive breakfast and lunch daily through the university’s meal assistance programme. This is up from 12,000 last year. Those receiving free meals include 3,000 students from middle-class families battling to finance their children’s studies.
The university gave NGO Gift of the Givers R15m this year to provide meals to students for 273 days.
Stephen Devereux, of the Centre of Excellence in Food Security at the University of the Western Cape (UWC), told a colloquium organised by the institution’s Dullah Omar Institute last week that there was a crisis of “hidden hunger” among students at campuses across SA.
‘Frightening’ poverty
Both the University of Cape Town (UCT) and the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) confirmed to the Sunday Times this week that they were investigating the scope and extent of food insecurity on campus.
Rhodes University vice-chancellor Dr Sizwe Mabizela described poverty among students as “really frightening”.
Several other universities are also providing meals and monthly grocery packs. Some of the programmes include:
● The Masidleni daily meal project at Wits University provides a plate of food to between 1,000 and 1,200 students daily, as well as grocery packs to 2,500-3,000 students a month;
● UWC provides food hampers to 500 students, and its economic and management sciences faculty, through an initiative known as Project Making a Difference, helps students with money for food, travel and living expenses;
● Students at UKZN receive food parcels as
Without the scheme, I wouldn’t know what I would do with my life
well as juice, fruit and a meal voucher for lunch that is redeemable on campus; and
● Stepping Stones, a non-profit organisation at UCT, has partnered with the university’s department of social development to provide about 100 students with sandwiches, fruit, tea and coffee daily.
A student pursuing a bachelor of psychology degree at UJ, whose parents are paying for his studies, said: “Because we get free breakfast and lunch, I concentrate better in class as I don’t worry about what I am going to eat after class.
“Without the scheme, I wouldn’t know what I would do with my life,” said the 21year-old from Taung in the North West.
Ntokozo Rivombo, 19, a second-year civil engineering student, was among the more than 470 students queueing for food outside the Wits
Food Sovereignty Centre this week.
At least 20 students were turned away on Thursday because there were only 450 plates of food.
The bare minimum
“I would be struggling if I didn’t get the lunch because my mom sends me only R200 a month.”
Rivombo, who doesn’t receive a living allowance from the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS), is living in a hostel that doesn’t offer meals.
Another student said she was “living on the bare minimum” and made sure the food hamper lasted her the whole month.
Jolene Billie, a third-year social work student at UCT whose mother lives in a shack in East London, said she was “blown away” by the Stepping Stones programme.
From her R2,000 monthly living allowance, she sends R1,000 to her unemployed mother.
Mabizela said many students at Rhodes who were receiving NSFAS help were going hungry because they were using a portion of their bursary to help their families.
“You can’t sleep at night knowing that your siblings back home have not eaten,” he said.
UJ spokesperson Herman Esterhuizen said the university had noticed a “remarkable improvement” in the self-esteem of students benefiting from the programme “which has translated into improved academic performance”.
UWC spokesperson Professor Cherrel Africa said a task team was reviewing food security research and the efforts of faculties and professional support structures involved in related interventions.