The Swan Song to the Month Long
by Ashley Brooks
by Ashley Brooks
I bloody finished it!
Well the four weeks of no hot food came to an end with a Buccsy Barefooted Bang! A massive Halloween party at Barefoot Cafe on Friday and a
wonderful fish braai at Buccaneers Backpackers on Saturday, both of whom
contributed so much to helping the cause. Thanks guys. Including the
fundraisers and sponsorship we raised a massive R12, 000. That’s about £800 for
you folks in the UK. And that’s definitely going to keep the feeding scheme at
Chintsa East Primary running for a fair few months. Thanks to all those who
donated and supported... well done to you all.
Not eating hot food was a pretty tough challenge for a slightly
podgy ninety hmm kg Welshman with a taste for steak and chips, but hell I’m
glad I did it. I have really come to realize how incredibly lucky I am. More than
anything, doing the fast got me reading about food insecurity, wealth gaps and
poverty within South Africa. What I found shocked and saddened me. Yet there is
also cause for hope and celebration. Let’s take a look at the data!
Who is really hungry
then?
The 2013 SANHANES-1[i]
study found that over 50% of South Africans are food insecure. That is, around
26% are food insecure and a further 27% are currently hungry. These figures are
based on the Global Hunger Index which incorporates energy intake, child
morbidity and child undernourishment. Of all the provinces of South Africa, the
Eastern Cape was the area worst affected by this depressing reality.
Hungry bellies make
for wandering minds
A huge
number of studies worldwide have shown that there is a direct link between
learning and hunger. To name but a few; a study by the Centre for Research on
the Wider Benefits of Learning in 2006[ii]
showed that “Children with nutritional deficiencies are particularly
susceptible to the
moment-to-moment
metabolic changes that impact upon cognitive ability and performance of the brain”;
A 2006 World Food Programme study concludes that at school age “…vitamin and
mineral deficiencies may limit future capacity to learn … [h]unger also reduces
opportunities to learn while in school by leading to low enrolment, attendance
and retention (i.e. limited access) as well as to poor attention spans (i.e.
inability to fully utilize the opportunity).” These results are repeated in
study after study and should therefore guide our thinking in terms of how
education can be of most benefit to a child. The lack of attention span of
students was a result noticed on the ground by Mike and Jo Ford here in Chintsa
and they subsequently started the feeding scheme in order to counter such
negative results of food insecurity and hunger.
“So why are the kids of South Africa
hungry?” I hear you ask
And so you
should! In a country of enormous wealth, in fact, a country that has a GDP that
makes up over one quarter of the GDP for the whole African continent, it
shouldn’t be a question we ought to have to ask at all! South Africa is
recognised by the World Bank as an ‘upper-middle income’ country[iii]; yet a the Human Development Indices of 2008 by
the United Nations Development Programme[iv]
found over 50% of South Africans live on less than $2 a day; and worse, over
half of those live on less than $1.25 (the international standard for extreme
poverty). These statistics go a long way to explaining the lack of nutritional
food for the average mainstream student. I do not wish to simplify; there are
many other determining factors including educational attainment of parents,
place of abode, employment of household and sex[v],
all of which are statistically significant contributing factors. But we can’t
ignore the elephant in the room: poverty is at the heart of food insecurity.
So Filthy Rich, So Bloody Poor
Since 1994
and the end of the apartheid system South Africa’s GDP has risen dramatically,
but the distribution of the generated wealth has been far from equal[vi].
South Africa is now one of the most unequal countries on the planet. And
whether we like to face up to it or not, the colour of our skin is still a good
indicator of whether we fall into the extreme poverty bracket or not. Despite
all the rhetoric to the contrary, the average black household earns on average
16% of the average white household[vii].
The poor, rural schools with which we worked have 100% black populations whose
catchment area are poor rural black communities. Again, living in a rural area
being another significant factor in the chances of falling below the poverty
line.
Shame upside down spells hope the right way
up
Many of the
papers I have been reading compared South Africa with other much poorer
countries in a negative light, emphasising, for example, the high educational
attainment levels of children from much poorer Latin American countries in
comparison to South Africa. In fact, most papers I came across were less than
complimentary about the education, poverty and inequality realities of Africa’s
richest nation.
But then I
realised, I had been reading the papers upside down and back to front. Such
shocking statistics shouldn’t be read with a sorry heart. Indeed, they should be
read as a reason for hope! If much poorer nations can achieve better results in
educational, poverty and equity terms, then why on earth can’t South
Africa. Well, such an answer is far beyond
the remit of this blog and way beyond my capabilities, but it has planted in me
the seed of hope and a desire to research more about where things are going
well.
Thanks for the energy
M & J
First person experience of some of these realities has helped
me gain far more understanding than any academic paper ever could. And we too,
here in Chintsa, have cause for hope and celebration. The feeding scheme is
working. The energy levels in the classrooms and computer laboratories where we
run our Wild Coast Schools Programme are fantastic. And for that we have to
thank Mike and Jo Ford, the founders of the Friends of Chintsa Feeding Scheme. It
is making a real difference to children who would otherwise lack the
nutritional food required to benefit from the education, however
unsatisfactory, than they would otherwise could.
Blundering my way
through the bush
Ok, so this is all a bit disjointed and if you’re hoping
that I will at last bring it all together in a simple, well formulated and
inspirational conclusion then please stop reading now; I do hate to disappoint.
However, I hope that I’ve given you some food for thought. Whoever you wish to
blame for lack of nutritional food, the children themselves should be free from
your accusations and deserving of your support. They require your help,
whatever it is you can give, be it a few pennies, a huge fundraiser, a month
long sponsored fast or simply a quick and relatively painless ‘like’ of our
Friends of Chintsa Facebook page. I thank you all for your help and time, and
proudly pass the baton on to our last Nuremburg volunteers, Kat and Jana who
are currently going without the hot stuff back in Germany! Keep u the good work
both. Love and (deliciously warm) peas.
[i] The South African
National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, 2013, HSRC Press Ltd.
[ii] Sorhaindo S. and Feinstein
L. ‘Wider Benefits of Learning Research Report No.18’ 2006. IOE London
[v] A. Narayan and S.
Mahajan ‘The State of Opportunities in South Africa: Inequality among Children
and in the Labour Market’ Poverty Reduction and Equity Department World Bank Vol.
2, No. 1 2013
[vi]
Tonheim M. and Matose F. “South Africa: social mobility for a few?” Norwegian
Centre for Peace Building, 2013 Report
