Hundreds of vulnerable children and their families, from the Western Cape’s West Coast areas are still receiving daily cooked meals, safeguarding that they don’t go hungry during the lockdown. This has been made possible through private funding and permission granted by the Department of Social Development, to the Peninsula School Feeding Programme (PSFP) as an essential service. The PSFP received authorisation in line with the national lockdown regulations, to continue serving cooked meals at schools during COVID-19 lockdown.
This programme includes food relief support for Early Childhood Development (ECD) playgroups and ECD Centres, including both young children and their families. Playgroup leaders, who are funded by Umoya Energy Wind Farm, are able to continue feeding children, either through cooked meals or weekly food parcels which include nutritious sustaining food like porridge and meat that
provides meals for a full week.
In addition to this, Umoya Energy Wind Farm, confirmed their support and funding of the feeding schemes at Louwville High School, in Vredenburg, as well as Middelpos Primary School, in Saldanha Bay. This means that over 400 school learners, who come from vulnerable West Coast families, will receive a nutritious breakfast and lunch for the school calendar year and due to the permission granted, the feeding programme will not be halted even though schools aren’t operating.
In addition to supporting the cost of cooked meals, two PSFA volunteer food preparers are being funded at Middelpos Primary School, by the wind farm.
“We are pleased to be able to provide much needed support to our surrounding communities by engaging local NPO partners as well as Sector Government Departments, during these extraordinary times that are crippling communities across the country,” said Celiwe Mabaso, Community Operations Manager for Umoya Energy Wind Farm.
Umoya Energy Wind Farm forms part of the Saldanha Bay Municipality’s COVID-19 Response team, which draws on local businesses and local NGO’s in the area.
The Umoya Energy Wind Farm funded programme builds capacity amongst parents to help ensure that children have increased opportunities to quality learning and caring programmes. The parents who are trained as Playgroup leaders receive a stipend and provide a meal each day for up to one hundred children participating in these formalised playgroups.
“This Programme was launched in February 2019 and has meant that children benefit from developmental support, as well as receiving a nutritious daily meal, which has continued during the lockdown, through the services of the Peninsula School Feeding Programme,” concluded Celiwe Mabaso.
