Three out of every four children live below the poverty line. Poverty and unemployment affect some 22 million South Africans.
WARMTH - War against Malnutrition, TB and Hunger
WARMTH is a community based nutrition project operating in the underprivileged areas around Cape Town, Western Cape, South Africa. Warmth’s vision in that "No one in the Western Cape need go to bed hungry". Their mission is to relieve hunger, malnutrition and chronic diseases by providing low cost nutritious food to disadvantaged communities in the Western Cape, through a network of community kitchens and healthcare workshops, thereby stimulating community development.
WARMTH – subsidises community kitchens, provides the premises, training for the cook, and basic ingredients for soup, soya stew and rice. These meals are sold to customers for a small sum or in exchange for vouchers (supplied to the very poorest); for many people the food that they receive from the kitchen is the only meal of the day and the only means they have of boosting their immune systems. The cooks receive no salary but earn a living from the meals they sell.
Kitchens come in many shapes and sizes. For example there is one in a converted shipping container next to the Nyanga Clinic. This opens early so that food can be served to the AIDS and TB patients who otherwise would have to take their medicines on an empty stomach. Zoliswa’s kitchen in Khayelitsha serves 200 meals per day, mainly to schoolchildren. Like some of the other cooks, Zoliswa prepares one or two other dishes in addition to the basic ones, for those who can afford slightly more. ‘Vetkoek’ (a kind of dumpling) is a favourite!
