Masiphumelele is a community that is struggling, people living here face an array of daily challenges. High crime rates, low employment, overcrowding, a devastating lack of infrastructure and extreme living conditions surround the community – yet the people who live here are resilient and resourceful. When the South African child grant increased by only 4% to R480 per month –parents who are already struggling to put food on the table for their families are now being pushed even further below the breadline.

It is bad enough that working adults often skip their daily meals in Masi, but now with the little increase to the south African child grant – many children are going hungry. Children need a healthy balanced diet to develop and grow – when they are left with little or no food their development is affected. Most employed parents are still trying to recover alongside a battled South African economy with the uncertainty of the Covid-19 pandemic looming over the globe. Some people in Masi only work as little as once or twice a week – barely enough to sustain their family and provide healthy nutritional food for their children.

Introducing Masicorp’s ECD Feeding Programme

Our feeding programme provides the children attending our educares with two hot, healthy, and nutritionally balanced meals each day – containing at least four vegetables and a protein along with two fruit snacks to keep children going throughout the day.

Masicorp is an industry leader in ECD (early childhood development) because we run three ECD centres that care for close to 300 children daily. We also work alongside informal and under-resourced crèches in the community, helping them with the structure, skills and tools needed to elevate the standard of care in their schools.

We ensure that our education programmes at ECD level are of the highest standard by continually investing in teacher training and upskilling. This, combined with a first-class feeding initiative, is what makes our ECD centres so appealing because many parents rely heavily on the South African child grant to help feed their children. Our pre-schools take care of these children with nourishing daily meals that ensure they get the nutrition they need to grow and thrive.

“Since we’ve implemented the feeding programme – children are attentive in class, and they want to come to school every day now. Before – some children would feel embarrassed about lunch time because they had nothing to eat – now, we have happy, healthy, full children.”

– Doiline Maisiri (Chasmay Educare Principal).

If you would like to contribute to helping us feed children and support parents living in Masiphumelele please give the gift of a warm belly here.