‘A hungry learner cannot reach their potential’

A few months ago, the building which houses the Westbury Secondary School feeding scheme was burgled and as a result of this, the feeding scheme could not run as usual.

The school is well known for their success in general academic results, yet hunger still hinders learners from achieving their full potential. The feeding scheme has been providing meals during breaks and after school to needy learners for the past 15 years.

“Our feeding scheme is not subsidised by the Department of Education and as such, it is sometimes difficult to feed the learners. We also provide a meal to learners from our two feeder primary schools,” said principal Been Robinson in a proposal.

Two third-year social work students from the University of Johannesburg, Thato Pholoto and Angeline Mnisi have been placed at the school to complete their practicals.

Pholoto explained that they had to look for two needs or issues at the school and it was their assignment to assist in solving it.

One of their projects is to assist with the feeding scheme and the other is to grow a sustainable vegetable garden in order to provide long term solutions for the feeding scheme.

“While we were busy with that there was a break in where they took pots and food, so there wasn’t enough food. Each learner from the school was then given the task to donate a single tin of food, so we managed to collect all of that and R 2300 for the feeding scheme,” said Pholoto.

The students are looking for people who could donate food parcels, however, if people felt the need to donate money, that will be used to purchase food items.

They came up with a funding proposal which they wanted the community to see that the feeding scheme played an important role in the community and that is the reason they needed to help out. At the moment, the children are not fed on Fridays because of the food shortage.

This means for some learners that they go without food for the entire weekend until the following Monday.

Pholoto said, “We’ve been going around the community to get donations, we also visited Johannesburg Metro Police Department (JMPD). They said that they were going to donate some stuff, so we are still waiting on a call from them.”

In a proposal, Robinson said that it has become an uphill battle to sustain the highly successful programme as a result of financial constraints.

Therefore, the school’s management is appealing to companies, institutions or individuals for assistance in this regard.

“Your kind and generous gesture will go a long way in ensuring that we continue to provide a high-quality learner that can be readily absorbed into tertiary institutions, the job market and society as a whole,” said Robinson.

If you would like to contribute to the feeding scheme, contact Thato Pholoto on 078 982 3475 or drop off the items at the school.

Social Media Platforms for News:

Twitter: @SowetoUrban, Facebook: Soweto Urban News, Instagram: @SowetoUrban

News site 1: Westside-Eldos Urban News, News site 2: Soweto Urban News