Western Cape looking into weekend food parcels for pupils in School Nutrition Programme

The Western Cape Department of Education is looking into the possibility of providing weekend food parcels to pupils in the School Nutrition Programme.

This was announced by Premier Alan Winde in his State of the Province Address (Sopa) in the Western Cape Provincial Parliament on Wednesday.

This as the country grapples with a poverty crisis, where South Africans are either buying less food or experiencing hunger.

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Although the government has introduced the National School Nutrition Programme (NSNP) to alleviate hunger in pupils, the programme has its limitations.

In her budget vote earlier this month, Basic Education Minister Siviwe Gwarube revealed that the nutrition programme has been allocated R9.798 billion for the 2024/25 financial year, an increase of 5.6% from the 2023/24 allocation.

Pupils on nutrition programme

In the Western Cape, more than 500,000 vulnerable pupils receive free meals each year through the nutrition programme, said Winde on Wednesday.

“As a team, we have already agreed that the provincial ministers of Health, Education and Social Development will work together to identify where there are gaps in our extensive feeding schemes and how we ensure that we fight hunger with healthy, affordable meals,” said Winde.

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“We have to be innovative: for example, I have asked our Minister of Education to look at the possibility of sending pupils, who are part of our school feeding schemes, home on a Friday with a food parcel for the weekend. Because so many of our pupils get their last meal on a Friday and their next meal on a Monday morning.”

Winde: ‘No one should go to bed hungry’

Although the province is doing all it can to create jobs, families also have to grapple with the rising cost of living.

“We may be creating jobs, but too many residents are not feeling the relief of these economic opportunities,” said Winde.

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“No one should go to bed hungry – ever. Through growth we create food security; by enabling communities we can feed our communities.”

To boost food production at the community level, from 2019 to 2023, the Western Cape government supported 48 smallholder producers, 172 subsistence producers, and 3,308 households in the production of food resources like food gardens.

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Over the same period, it provided cooked meals to those in need, through 102 community nutrition and development centres and 358 soup kitchens across the province.