In South Africa, Hunger and Malnutrition Are Fought at School

4.6% of the population of South Africa suffers from hunger. That’s more than 2 million and a half people, including many children who, because of malnutrition, have development problems, cognitive handicaps and sometimes die for lack of food. This information comes from the Global Hunger Index 2017, which has periodically published data on hunger in countries around the world from the 1990s until now. South Africa has seen improvement over the last twenty years, but malnutrition, especially during childhood, remains a serious and common problem, especially in the province of Eastern Cape. Enel Green Power has built and brought into operation the Nojoli and Gibson Bay wind farms in the province of Eastern Cape. Together with renewable technologies and clean energy, we’ve also brought the model of Creating Shared Value (CSV) to the region. This model places dialogue and collaboration with local populations at the centre of our work, in order to help build conditions for integral development. "Together with the NGO Soul Provider Trust, Enel Green Power is part of a project to reduce childhood malnutrition, which involves schools and brings together education and healthcare." Change Starts in Class Soul Food is Soul Provider Trust’s main project and aims to provide a hot meal to the poor, with special attention to children and young people that attend school. "6 Soul Food projects are now active. Every week, they provide hot meals to about 42,000 school-age children, as well as the elderly and women who have been abused, terminally ill and people affected by HIV." Soul Food’s success is a simple to solution that stems from recovering excess food from hotels, restaurants and places of entertainment, which would otherwise end up in the dump, to give it to those suffering from hunger. Soul Food’s partnership with Enel Green Power South Africa, food donations from producers and shops, is changing the lives of thousands of children and their families. An increase in school attendance and reduced dropout rates can be attributed to the direct impact Soul Provider has had in the community. This has resulted in the improvement of both nutrition and cognitive skills. "A lot of kids are malnourished and come to school just to get food! It’s an extremely difficult situation, which we wouldn’t be able to face without the help of Soul Food and Enel Green Power." Brent Chalmers, Founder and Trustee of OSB Cam Much more than a simple meal Eric Mtyobo is the soul and creator of Soul Provider Trust. In the province of Eastern Cape, he is responsible for the logistics and delivery of food packages to the small towns of Hankey and Addo, near Port Elizabeth, one of the cities of the province, where our Gibson Bay wind farm is located. We provided Mtyobo with a vehicle and we take care of the monthly fuel costs to allow him to collect excess food and then deliver it to schools and institutions supported by the NGO. "The food collected by Eric Mtyobo feeds around 3,500 school-aged children in Hankey and 100 children in Addo." The food delivered to schools in Port Elizabeth is a direct response to the fundamental needs of the local communities while achieving 5 of The United Nations' 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) A simple meal, every day, is a response to poverty and malnutrition (SDGs 1 and 2) and it’s also a way to encourage stable access to adequate education (SDG 4), promote gender equality (SDG 5) and reduce inequality (SDG 10).

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In South Africa, Hunger and Malnutrition Are Fought at School

In South Africa, Hunger and Malnutrition Are Fought at School