Ensuring Food Security

Hunger is one of the most pressing challenges cause by abject poverty.  The majority of the Viva Foundation's beneficiaries live below the poverty line and children are particularly vulnerable to hunger and a lack of quality nutrition.  

Hunger and the lack of access to nutritious food, impacts growth, learning and performance.  It is a societal injustice in a country like South Africa, where there are no barriers, or challenges in agricultural conditions.  Yet food is expensive and even inexpensive food is often out of the reach of underprivileged people who live in informal settlements and inner city slums.  

The Viva Foundation's Feeding Scheme steps up to the challenges of hunger and food-inaccessibility in 3 ways:

1. School Feeding Scheme: By providing two cooked meals daily to all the children in the Viva Independent Schools.

2. Family Support: By sending food parcels home with our learners, to their families and siblings and other beneficiaries of our programmes.

3. Community Support: By distributing food parcels to vulnerable communities.  The food parcels consist usually of enough groceries and the stable maize meal, that last for a week, or up to a month, depending on the size of the family and available funding for each distribution. 

Viva cultivates fresh vegetables at the Viva Connect, Cullinan centre to provide for the School 

The Viva Feeding Scheme is completely dependent upon donations and the food parcels are provided completely without cost to the beneficiaries.  Donations are tax deductible in South Africa and Germany and will soon also be tax deductible in the UK.