SOUTH AFRICA – 10,000 Euros for Children in Distress
2023-03-10
In March 2023, the Umckaloabo Foundation donated €10,000 to support the South African aid organization Children in Distress (CiD). This network serves as a food pantry: every weekday, some 3,000 children and adolescents eat a warm meal with CiD. They probably would not have had this warm meal otherwise, either because their parents are too poor or because the parents are simply absent.
Corn - a staple food
The people who work at CiD are doing a good deed twice over: for one thing, they are preventing food waste by cooking with food donations that have a brief shelf life. And for another thing, they are feeding children who are growing up either in poor families or as orphans.
Thanks to the support of the Umckaloabo Foundation, CiD can provide enough corn to feed 3,000 children for six months. Corn is the most important staple in the diet of these children who are often undernourished or malnourished.
300-500 children in particular need of help also receive e’Pap, a calorie-dense and nutrient-enriched porridge.
A lifeline for many children
Children in Distress works intensely and with as little bureaucracy as possible to offer help where it is needed most. And in March 2023, Uwe Bothur, a member of the board at the Foundation, was able to see this for himself yet again.
The organization operates nine family centers in the region and protects families and children from malnutrition and going hungry. For many families and orphans, receiving food from CiD was a lifeline during the pandemic, and after the devastating floods in the eastern part of the country in spring 2023, many people relied on CiD once more to get by.
A partnership of many years
The Umckaloabo Foundation has been supporting the work of Children in Distress for over five years. Our partnership began by building a facility for logistics and refrigeration. CiD offered immediate emergency assistance during the coronavirus pandemic, in part with the aid of the Umckaloabo Foundation. As a result, many children and families who had nothing to live off of during lockdown were given not just food in their desperate state: they were also given a sense of hope.
An impressive team
Children in Distress stands out because of its well-developed monitoring system. Local family centers are the point of contact for children and their families. Mothers from the community cook lunch but also keep an eye on the children’s emotional and physical health. CiD takes a comprehensive approach to its community work.
In March, a group of volunteers from Germany, the Czech Republic and Italy had the opportunity to experience the work that Children in Distress does on site. They felt the spirit of appreciation that fills the center and were greatly moved by the work done by Lauren Patterson and her team.