A KITCHEN FOR EACH SCHOOL:
Often, these sometimes ‘forgotten’ children have to grow up with only one in some cases no parents with which to be guided, to be loved or even just to be fed. Many times on visits to these schools, we find that on Monday morning, many of these children are restless and are unable to concentrate, however after a school meal, there is a marked improvement and a return to some form of normality. Simply, this is due to lack of nourishment, and as a result one of our key focus areas, is to ensure that every school in the area, has access to bulk foods, and has the ability both from a cook perspective, and also a facility in which to prepare and cook these meals. Basic foods are supplied to all of the schools and obviously these require preparation and cooking. We observed that three of the ten schools do not have kitchens. These schools prepared the food over an open fire outside on the school grounds. Unfortunately, should there be rain, snow or even strong winds, because the preparation was over an open fire, it became impossible to feed these learners, and they would go home hungry. Bearing in mind that a number of these children have lost one or both parents, there was no guarantee that a meal would be waiting for them at home either. It’s difficult to imagine how hungry these children must have been, when for instance rain set in for a week or more! As a result of these issues, it was decided to start building kitchens at the schools, where preparation of meals could be completed irrespective of weather conditions. With the help of our project partners, we built three kitchens one at Sand River Primary School, one at Eboyeni Primary School and one at Remington Primary School which now guarantees the children at least one hot meal per day.
Remington school kitchen:
Sandriver School kitchen:
Eboyeni School kitchen:
Eboyeni School Old Kitchen
