Food Aid for struggling families

SALT Alliance is delighted and grateful to announce that through Zuid-Afrika Mission and Verre Naasten SALT has received funding from the Pharus Foundation for food relief in South Africa!

SALT members identified 2269 food-insecure families in June/July in their local communities and applied to Verre Naasten and Zuid-Afrika Mission for assistance in sourcing food aid. The strict COVID South African lockdown response meant that families suddenly faced job losses and retrenchments. Many South Africans rely on informal traders to purchase their food or are informal traders themselves. Food prices in South Africa rose exponentially, schools were closed for 5 months (effectively denying access to school feeding programmes many families relied on) and the economy took a major hit with hotels, restaurants, tourism and events banned. 

Verre Naasten and Zuid-Afrika Mission are long term partners of many of our SALT members and are intimately acquainted with the communities we work in through their ongoing grassroots support in treating the HIV and AIDS pandemic, as well as TB. 

The Pharus Foundation generously donated food parcels to be distributed through SALT members in August/September. 
- eThembeni will distribute 620 food parcels to mostly rural families in KwaZulu-Natal
- Mfesane will distribute 649 food parcels on the Cape West Coast, in Khayelitsha (Cape Town) and in Port Elizabeth's outlying areas
- Nakekela will distribute 168 food parcels to their support groups, families of patients and identified families in the kwaMhlanga Municipality
- Thembalethu Centre has identified 142 families who are struggling with food security, also in kwaMhlanga
- Manaleni Achievement Centre works with school age children and will distribute food parcels to 40 families
- Thembalethu Nkomazi works in the north-eastern part of South Africa and will distribute 650 parcels across the Nkomazi region which borders Swaziland, Mozambique and the Kruger National Park

With funds arriving in the SALT bank account last week on Friday, the first food parcels have already been delivered to households in the villages of eBusi and kwaHlathi in KwaZulu-Natal by SALT Alliance member eThembeni who teamed up with URCSA Msinga to deliver this food relief.

With all our hearts - a huge THANK YOU to Pharus Foundation, Zuid-Afrika Mission and Verre Naasten from our SALT members!

Giving a hand up with Stichting Pharus and Zuid-Afrika Mission and Verre Naasten
#SALTAlliance #SALThandup

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