Johannesburg -
It’s dark and cold in the tiny, cramped house the Tshwedi siblings share with their mentally-ill uncle in Kagiso. And there is hardly ever any food to eat.
On most days, the only meal the three children consume is a donated peanut butter sandwich and a cup of milk from a feeding centre in Kagiso, where they live.
Their mother died and their uncle cannot stretch his meagre pension any further. For the children, in grades 4, 10, and 12, this single meal is saving their lives.
“They attend school every day and are doing well,” explains Phindile Hlalele, the executive director of the ACFS, a feeding scheme that nourishes 31 000 children like Tshwedi’s every day across Joburg.
But without the donation, “their efforts to uplift themselves would surely fail because malnutrition has a disastrous effect on children’s growth and learning”.
Chronic hunger was terrifyingly real in Joburg, she said.
“There are many cases like these. We’ve just dealt with two where there were very sick children in the homes. Everyone was relying on a small social grant and there was nothing, absolutely nothing, to eat.”
It was scary how hunger is a hidden problem, she said.
“Most people seem surprised there are such hungry people in a wealthy city like Joburg. Yet hunger is the most crucial challenge we are faced with.” Across SA, hunger is on an epic scale. One in four people go to bed hungry every day - that’s 14 million people. A further 15 million are on the terrifying verge of joining the ranks of the chronically hungry.
A new Oxfam report, “Hidden Hunger in SA: The Faces of Hunger and Malnutrition in a Food Secure Nation”, due to be released on Monday, set out to show the harrowing real-life examples of what hunger in South Africa “looks and feels like”.
There are people like Elzetta, a 23-year-old, with a daily food budget of R6 to feed herself, her sister and her two children. With that, she buys a few potatoes and a small bag of rice. She tells how the longest time her family has gone hungry is for a week. At night, the children wake up, crying, from aching pangs of hunger.
“Stories like these hit you in the stomach,” said Rashmi Mistry, the economic justice campaign manager at Oxfam. “How can this possibly be true in this day and age, in 2014, in South Africa, one of the richest countries in Africa?”
It was a “national scandal” that South Africa is food secure country, yet the stomachs of so many - particularly women and children - were empty.
Oxfam surveyed nine municipalities in Limpopo, the Eastern Cape and the Western Cape and its report reveals that in the Eastern Cape, for example, 36 percent of people battle hunger. In Limpopo, 31 percent suffer food insecurity.
To cope with the ever-rising cost of food, communities cut down on the size of their meals, skip entire meals, buy expired food, beg neighbours for food or sell their labour for a meal.
“If you’ve got a low income, one of your major expenses is on food. That’s 50 percent and on top of 15 percent on electricity. If both these prices are going up, and your wages aren’t or you don’t have regular employment, you’re getting more squeezed,” Mistry said.
There were national policies in place to battle hunger but these are “piecemeal” and “are not delivering”, she said.
Oxfam wants to work towards the development of a national food act. “That will hold government… and other actors like the private sector accountable to ending hunger and malnourishment… and thinking how to ensure people have access to good, nutritious food.”
There wasn’t one “magic bullet” to overcome hunger, she said. “What it needs is targeted job creation for people facing hunger, a review of the social grant system, increased access to land and water resources so people who want to grow their own food, can.”
She cited next week’s commemoration of World Food Day, where the government would unveil a food mountain in Malale in Musina. “That’s not going to address the root problems of hunger,” said Mistry. “People need more hope than just a few handouts.”
Hunger brings shame. “A lot of people told us how it stripped them of their dignity,” she said.
- Saturday Star