In September, we saw the start of an exciting new partnership between Red Hill Pre-School and Children of Hope Educare centres and Joint Aid Management (JAM). These two preschools are based in the informal community of Red Hill, just outside of Cape Town where The Happy Africa Foundation have been working with them as part of our health and nutrition program.
JAM is a humanitarian organisation, which aims to provide thousands of children across many African countries with access to healthy and balanced daily meals. JAM recently expanded their work within South Africa to the Western Cape region and contacted The Happy Africa Foundation to establish how the two charities could work together. Following a series of discussions between JAM, The Happy Africa Foundation and the principals of Red Hill and Children of Hope, a direct partnership was established.
This direct relationship aims to empower the schools in developing a more sustainable model for their health and nutrition program. Each school received one month’s supply of porridge, along with breakfast bowls and spoons for each child. Following some basic training in the preparation and serving of the porridge, both principals began a one month trial period of serving the porridge to pupils every morning. As well as providing children with a filling and satisfying breakfast, the porridge blend contains 75% of a child’s micro-nutrient requirements for the day.
So far, the children have all been enjoying their daily coconut flavoured porridge and the teachers and principals have been impressed by how easily the meal can be prepared. Whilst ensuring that all children continue to receive a nutritious breakfast each morning, the schools have also made an important step forward in developing their own independent relationship with JAM, which will hopefully ensure long term health and nutrition support for the two pre-school centres.