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A MEAL A DAY:Women dish outlunch for pupils atInkwenkwenziPrimary School inDiepkloof, Soweto.Children fromdisadvantagedfamilies receive freemeals provided bygovernmentthrough theschools’ feedingscheme.

PICTURES: PABALLO THEKISO

ANTHONY SETTIPANI

‘OUR children areour greatest treas-ure. They are ourfuture.” Nelson

Mandela’s words ring far be-yond his presidency, but thework envisaged is far fromdone.

During his earliest days aspresident, Mandela establishedthe National School NutritionProgramme, with the intentionof ensuring every pupil hadaccess to at least one healthymeal a day.

Established as part of theReconstruction and Develop-ment Programme, it was de-signed to “ensure that as soonas possible, and certainlywithin three years, every per-son in South Africa can gettheir basic nutritional require-ment each day and no longerlive in fear of going hungry”.

Today, 21 years later, 26 per-cent of South Africans regu-larly experience hunger, and afurther 28 percent are at risk.

Hunger is not the only issue– 234 million of the world’s870 million chronically under-nourished people live in sub-Saharan Africa, according tothe UN Food and AgriculturalOrganisation.

While the scope and range ofthe National School NutritionProgramme have grown astro-nomically – reaching nine mil-lion children – the quality ofthe food provided and the num-ber of children falling throughthe cracks have many princi-pals, experts and rights ac-tivists pushing for more.

“The point of this pro-gramme is to try to access themost desperate people. Ofcourse it’s not going to beenough to sustain these peo-ple,” says Sasha Stevenson, anattorney working for humanrights organisation Section27.

“It’s one part of what isneeded for children to be able tolearn and operate optimally,but it’s not sufficient.”

Not only are children goinghungry, but many more arechronically malnourished.

“We call it the double bur-den,” says Salome Kruger, pro-fessor of nutrition at NorthWest University, referring tothe problem of apparently well-fed people being malnourished.“There are a lot of foods thatprovide energy, like starchesand fat.”

Although these foods fillpeople up, they are a far cryfrom the balanced diet their

bodies need. According toKruger, someone may be over-weight while being deficient iniron or vitamin A, leading tostunting early in life.

“It’s typical of a diet veryhigh in mealie meal and fat andsugar, and not high in meatsand vegetables,” she says.

About 43.6 percent of chil-dren in South African underfive years old have vitamin Adeficiency. South Africans fallinto this category of being ade-quately fed but undernour-ished, according to the SouthAfrican National Health andNutrition Examination Survey,published in 2013.

In Gauteng, the GeneralHousehold Survey found about19.2 percent of householdswere food insecure.

Stevenson and Kruger agreethat monitoring by the govern-ment isn’t as good as it shouldbe. With the time pupils spendat school, Stevenson sees theNational School Nutrition Pro-gramme as an ideal avenue forgovernment intervention.

“For me, the first step is put-ting in place a system to ensurethe nutritional value of thefood that is provided,” she says.

“While filling stomachs is anoble aim and important, wehave significant malnutritionamong children. This is poten-tially an extremely powerfulintervention in that you’ve gotall these kids in one place.”

According to Stevenson, it’snot just a good opportunity, buta constitutional obligation.

“There’s a distinction be-tween rights afforded to adultsand (those afforded) to chil-dren.”

While the rights of adults tohealth care, food, water and so-cial security are enshrined inSection 27 of the constitution,Section 28 accounts morespecifically for the rights ofchildren, and includes asupreme obligation on the stateto provide basic nutrition.

Section 27 provides for theincremental realisation ofrights in the light of limits onresources. This means govern-ment doesn’t need to deliverevery right immediately, butmust make constant progresstowards this goal as best it can.

“When it comes to children,there’s no progressive realisa-tion and there’s no available re-sources constraints.

“What that really means isthat the state is obliged to doeverything possible, right now,to ensure the realisation of thatright,” she says.

MOST students at the Rose-bank Primary School bringtheir own lunch, but a group of20 or so come from families thatare unable to provide themwith a daily meal.

Tiffany Gaaikeuken, ateacher at the school, has runthe feeding scheme there forthe past three years.

Othelia Motshwari has pre-pared the students’ meals sincethe programme’s beginning,several years before that.

Gaaikeuken, whose mother

owns a nearby restaurant,sources all of the children’sfood from the same vendors asthe restaurant itself, whichsaves the school a considerableamount.

“For breakfast, they’ll getmealie meal or oats, and sheusually makes them some rooi-bos tea,” said Gaaikeuken.“And then for lunch, it’s sand-wiches or a cooked meal ofchicken or rice, or beans ontoast, or something like that.”

On Wednesdays, the restau-

rant itself prepares lunch forthe students, and a local coffeeshop also donates a collectionof muffins and pastries once aweek.

“Our principal was speak-ing to them one day, and theysaid they often don’t sell alltheir muffins in a day. The left-overs get thrown out. It wasthen agreed that they’d be sentto the school.”

Money for the food – aboutR3 500 a month – is privatelydonated by a company owned

by the father of a formerteacher. Gaaikeuken explainsthat the school doesn’t receiveany assistance from the De-partment of Education, but sheactually prefers it this way.Buying the food herself freesher to purchase in smallerquantities, so the food her stu-dents get is fresher overall.

“We aim for things that willfill them,” Gaaikeuken says,“sadly often until the next day,because oftentimes they aren’tgetting dinner.”

IN THE Elias Motsoaledi infor-mal settlement in Soweto,many parents are unemployed,and send their children to pre-schools like the EmbizweniDay Care before they are oldenough to go to Inkwenkwezifor primary school. Everyweek, principal Victoria Ncoyiand her two teachers struggleto stretch R300 or R400 intoenough food for their centre’s40-odd learners.

“I try to make it a balanceddiet,” she says, adding that shesometimes buys meat from avendor down the road if she hasthe means. Most days, though,

it’s veggies and pap.“Sometimes I give them just

vegetables and soup, no meat,”she says, adding that she andher teachers eat the same foodthe kids do. On the wall of thestorage container that is Em-bizweni’s main classroom, aposter pairs the names of fruitswith their colourful, cartoon-ish likenesses.

For many kids sitting on thefloor, rolling play-dough on atabletop or raising buildingblock towers these images arelikely the closest they’ve cometo tasting a mango or water-melon.

WHEN Skipper Lekgalake ar-rived as principal of Inkwe-nkwezi Primary School in theDiepkloof area of Soweto,there was no kitchen to preparemeals for the pupils.

“They used to cook in one ofthe classrooms with paraffin,”he says. “And, you know, paraf-fin is not good for a schoolenvironment.”

Nine years ago, Lekgalakefound sponsorship from theMacquarie First South Corpo-rate Finance in Sandton that

helped to pay to convert old toi-lets into a hygienic space forcooking meals.

The project’s cost of R50 000was met by private donors.

“The minister is given bigbudgets, but that’s not showingon the ground,” Lekgalakesays. “We must compensate, wemust fund-raise for ourselves.”

These days, a trio of parents

cook and serve lunch to thechildren. On the day the Satur-day Star visits, these parentsare serving from two largemetal pots: one filled with pap,and the other vegetables. Thereis no meat, not even gravy.

Lekgalake says the meal istypical – cabbage, pap, two ap-ples, and perhaps a little samp.

“There’s malnutrition here,”

Lekgalake says, expressing con-cern about the quality andquantity of the food providedby the department.

“I’m not discrediting thegovernment for not doing agood job, but it should havemore monitoring. They’re notlooking at the kind of foodwe’re receiving.”

Lekgalake says that with the

issues of hunger and malnutri-tion among his pupils, it can bedifficult for the school to focuson what it does best – teaching.

Considering the back-grounds of the pupils, Lek-galake believes better food isneeded and more of it.

Many of the pupils walk toschool from the Motsoaledi in-formal settlement, just over

2km down the road. Lekgalakesays many are orphans andabout 40 percent live without aparent.

“They are having one meal aday when it is my desire thatthey receive two or three.”

He is grateful his pupils re-ceive a meal, but says the longhours they spend at school,along with playing sport,means they need more food –and nutrition.

“You can’t teach an emptytummy,” he says.

IT’S 10AM at Wychwood Pri-mary School in the communityof Germiston. Children insmart uniforms mill about onthe lawn outside the formerModel C school, food in theirhands. Somewhere in the mix,about 20 of the 580 pupils havetheir lunches prepared forthem each day by the school.

Linda van Schalkwyk hasrun the feeding scheme at Wych-wood since it started, about 15years ago. She points out onegirl, sitting on the step with herfriends.

“This little girl,” she says,“she and her brother started to-

day. The parents came to us andsaid, ‘You know, we’re having ahard time looking after our chil-dren’.” According to Van Schalk-wyk, this happens occasionally.Most of the time, the teachersare the ones who notice when astudent isn’t bringing lunch.

Wychwood is a quintile 5school. This means it receivesno assistance from the NationalSchool Nutrition Programme,which cuts off at quintile 3. Onan average day, students who areon the feeding scheme receive asmall lunchbox containingbread slices spread with a bit ofbutter and jam.

Wanted: A better future on a plateLack of nutrition stunts hopefor SA’s ‘greatest treasure’

School meals not enough and not good enough

Providing for kids whose parents are unable to afford lunch

Making do on a shoestring Their daily bread and jam

LUNCH TIME: Many children at Rosebank Primary School relyon a sponsored meal to get through the day.

TIGHT BUDGET: Embizweni Day Care makes a little go further.

FREE LUNCH: Children at Wychwood Primary School receivemeals provided by parents and sponsors through the school’sfeeding scheme.