19 Dec 2011
Minister of Social Development Bathabile Dlamini will on Tuesday launch the Food for All Campaign in the North West as part of government’s efforts to fight extreme hunger and poverty.
Through this campaign, the department seeks to deal with incidents of extreme hunger which in certain instances result in bad and unfortunate situations, such as the death of four children due to hunger and dehydration at Verdwaal 2 in Itsoseng village, North West.
“We hope that this campaign will help us root out extreme hunger and poverty in poor families, especially because we will also distribute 200 food parcels to poor families in the Ngaka Modiri Molema District Municipality. We are happy that they too will have a joyous Christmas,” she said. The Campaign will be rolled out in partnership with FoodBank South Africa.
The launch will take place as follows:
Date: Tuesday, 20 December 2011
Time: 10h00
Venue: Makgori Village, Ratlou Local Municipality – North West
The aim of this campaign is to target malnourished and poverty stricken families and to encourage them about the need to continuously produce, prepare and eat nutritious and healthy food.
The Department of Social Development has already sent a team of officials in the Ngaka Modiri Molema District Municipality to profile households in the community with the view to assess the extent of food insecurity in a quest to come up with an intervention.
Minister Dlamini will be accompanied by the North West MEC for Social Development, Women, Children and People with Disabilities, Ms Mosetsanagape Mokomele-Mothibi.
At least 200 food parcels will be distributed to households in seven identified villages within the District. These include the village at which the launch will take place. Minister Dlamini will visit some of the households who will benefit from the Campaign as part of creating awareness on how to prepare nutritious food, as well as on the need for households to prepare food gardens. Such lessons will help us address problems of malnutrition-related diseases such as kwashiorkor.
Government’s drive to reduce hunger and malnutrition is one of the effective measures to address other socio-economic challenges such as crime, unemployment, ill health and poor education in the country.
An estimated 21,9% of South African households had inadequate or severely inadequate access to food. Food access problems were the most serious in North West where 33,3% of households had inadequate or severely inadequate food access. This is followed by KwaZulu-Natal (26,9%), Northern Cape (26%), Free State (23,6%) and Limpopo (20,6%), Eastern Cape (20,3%).
Food prices are also one of the key detrimental factors affecting food security in our country. The 2008/09 food prices increase was influenced by a number of factors including the oil price, climate variability, bio fuels production, urbanisation and transport costs, amongst others.
The recent global financial crisis have had serious direct and indirect impacts on the livelihoods and food security status for millions of South Africans for whom access to sufficient food was already a daily struggle. The current food insecurity, unemployment and poverty levels of many in South Africans calls for radical actions from all stakeholders across the food value chain.
RSVP:
Petrus Siko
Cell: 083 647 0668
Justice Ditshego
Cell: 079 497 7426
Enquiries:
Ms Lumka Oliphant
Cell: 083 484 8067
Issued by: Department of Social Development
19 Dec 2011
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