Durban — The uMlalazi Local Municipality in KwaZulu-Natal donated food parcels to 11 schools that were left without meals for its pupils due to challenges experienced by the National Schools Nutrition Programme (NSNP).
As part of the ongoing mayoral outreach programmes, mayor Queen Xulu donated food parcels to 11 schools in uMlalazi that were left without meals due to the breakdown of the schools' nutrition programme.
Xulu, along with her council members, visited a number of schools as an intervention measure into a situation she described as an emergency and a disaster.
“As the first citizen of the uMlalazi Municipality, I have received complaints from schools in almost all 28 wards of the municipality. 25 of them are predominantly rural and under the amakhosi leadership.
“The beneficiaries of the schools' nutrition programme are predominantly from indigent backgrounds where they only depend on the meal provided by the schools. Some of them are on chronic medication,” Xulu said.
“As a mother, mayor and chairperson of Salga (South African Local Government Association) Women’s Forum I'm making a call to all the good Samaritans to make a difference where they are in order to ensure a smooth teaching and learning environment for both learners and teachers,” Xulu said.
Meanwhile, on Thursday), the KZN legislature education portfolio committee conducted an unannounced overnight visits to schools in the Ugu District to monitor the NSNP.
Legislature spokesperson Wesley Canham said that reports of resuming the diversity of food items in schools had been widely publicised. It was for this reason that the portfolio committee embarked on fact-finding to establish if the school nutrition programme was now back on track.
On Friday, the committee will head to the King Cetshwayo District to conduct a similar exercise.
More in the Daily News on Friday.
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