The Union Against Hunger is demanding urgent government intervention to end child hunger.
More than a hundred activists marched in Cape Town on Friday, urging the government to respond to a growing hunger crisis in South Africa. Many of them work in community kitchens on the Cape Flats,
The activists, under the banner of the “Union Against Hunger”, had hoped to hand over a memorandum to President Cyril Ramaphosa, who was speaking in the convention centre at a Social Justice Summit, but no one came out to accept the memorandum. Activist Mark Heywood then went into the building and was able to hand it to a Presidency official.
The joint memorandum is by Union Against Hunger, the Healthy Living Alliance (HEALA), Grow Great, Abahlali baseMjondolo, Women on Farms Project, Real Reform for ECD, and the South African Federation of Trade Unions. It calls on the government to introduce legislation to eliminate food waste, lead a national campaign to drastically reduce malnutrition in children, and establish a national food commission to bring an end to hunger.
A parliamentary question revealed last year that about 1,450 children under the age of five died of acute malnutrition in 2023. According to one estimate, food insecurity affects over 60% of households in the country, and about a quarter of children in South Africa are stunted due to malnutrition.
Union Against Hunger member Busiso Moyo said that the march came a day after World Food Day. The Social Justice Summit happening in the convention centre was about “food security, sustainability and solidarity,” he said. “We saw this as a platform … to contribute to the resolutions that will come out.”
“It is a constitutional right that everyone must have access to sufficient food,” said Nzama Mbalati, CEO of HEALA. “We have taken it upon ourselves as civil society to build knowledge within communities on the plight of hunger.”
Sean Samson, from the Alcardo Andrews Foundation, said their community kitchen serves at least 1,000 meals a day. “People are surviving on very little, and as private citizens, we cannot do it all on our own. There needs to be a permanent solution.”
Phelisa Mashiyi of the Callas Foundation, which runs a community kitchen program, said such kitchens were doing what the government was supposed to be doing.
“We are under-resourced. We are tired. We are using money from our own pockets to serve and feed our neighbours.”
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Jersey
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Hitch Frenzy
So I\’m real good friends with this guy named Juan Ted. Now, Juan is a pretty improbable guy. He can steal ANYTHING he wants to. Literally anything. It could be the shirt off your back, the wallet in your pocket, or I\’m even sure he\’d find a way to steal your house (And your spouse too). So anyway, one day Juan and I are sitting around watching TV, and they announced that the hope diamond will not be on display anymore and is now getting moved to an undisclosed location. So as we hear this, Juan says \”I\’m gonna steal it\”. Now I know how good Juan is at this kind of stuff, so I just tell him good luck and he goes on his way. Eventually he narrows his search down to a small cave in South Africa. When Juan gets there, he doesn\’t see any guards or anything outside the cave, so he just walks in assuming he was wrong about where the diamond was. He wanders around for a while until he sees a long lit hallway with the hope diamond at the end of it. Confident in his abilities, he strolls over to the diamond and picks it up before realizing its a trap! Suddenly, red lights flashed, armed men came running out, sirens went off. You could hear one of the men say under his breath \”We finally caught Juan Ted.\” But Juan, being the best thief in the world, said \”Not quite. On the count of three, I will disappear.\” As the men looked around confused, Juan began to count. \”Uno. Dos.\” And he disappeared without a tres.