22 May 2020: Graffiti reminds residents of the Matharea settlement in Nairobi, Kenya, to sanitise during the Covid-19 pandemic. Rich countries have already secured more than a billion doses of vaccines. (Photograph by Reuters/ Baz Ratner) Food aid not distributed The KwaZulu-Natal department of social development has...
A Lancet article reporting on children’s height and weight changes over the past 30 years makes for grim reading when it comes to South Africa. ...
Jobless people in the country’s most impoverished province join the growing social grant queues before dawn on empty stomachs, having run out of food for the month....
More than seven million caregivers and 13 million children have been plunged deeper into poverty as payouts of the R500 caregiver grant top-up ended in October....
With more than 200 days of lockdown disruptions under our belts, many of us have found that our understanding of the world in which we live has shifted and we don’t want to return to (ab)normal, nor should we....
What thoughts, actions and capacities are required to build a more equitable food system in SA. We hear from Community Chest CEO, Lorenzo Davids, WWF Programme Impact Lead, Tatjana von Bormann and UCT Professor, Ralph Hamann. ...
The immediate impacts of the COVID-19 public health crisis and the lockdown imposed from 27 March 2020 revealed the deep fragility of the South African food system. This disruption has clearly led to a period of deep uncertainty and change, but has also created an...
What will it take to transform the food system? Lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic. Join us on Friday 16 October 11:00-12:00 as we explore what thoughts, actions and capacities are required in order to build a more equitable food system....
In a Jacana ‘Don’t Shut Up’ conversation with Maverick Citizen editor Mark Heywood, author Tracy Ledger explains the direct link between malnutrition and a propensity for violence. From abused farmworkers to a lack of coordination at all levels of government, the food system not only...
In South Africa, more than nine million children live in food-insecure households, and according to findings of a local survey, South Africans count the fear of food shortages and loss of income a close second to the fear of contracting the coronavirus. "The novel coronavirus...
By Lelona Mxesibe - 27 August 2020 The Covid-19 pandemic has thrown the spotlight on the importance of the informal economy as a means of survival for South Africa’s 2.9 million citizens without access to formal employment – as well as their resulting vulnerability. This is another...
Through the past 5 months, Food Flow have spent over R1.6 Million in purchases from small scale farmers, fishers and producers supporting more than 400 livelihoods all while getting food into more than 30 communities in 3 provinces. The organisation's Impact Report tells the story of...
Obesity increases the risk of dying of Covid-19 by nearly 50% and may make vaccines against the disease less effective, according to a comprehensive study using global data. The findings, which the lead researcher described as “scary”, show that the risks for people with obesity are greater...
Yesterday (19 August 2020) the Food Lab together with Community Chest co-hosted a webinar considering the link between human and planetary health. Marcelle Mentor (from Columbia University) highlighted the critical importance of education when it comes to nutrition and noted that food insecurity is not...
Almost 150 days into a national lockdown, what we feared would happen has happened. The recently released National Income Dynamics Study (NIDS) Coronavirus Rapid Mobile (Cram) survey has found that South Africans, and worse, children, are hungry, hungrier than they have been in years. This persistent hunger is likely to...
Register now for our upcoming webinar hosted in partnership with Community Chest. ...
Ihsaan Bassier, Refiloe Joala and Thando Vilakazi COVID-19 has wrought havoc on poor households in countries across the world. In South Africa, more and more people are facing hunger resulting from mass job losses and small, poorly implemented supplementary cash grants. On top of this the pandemic has put...
Nutrition is fundamental to health and wellbeing and as such dietitians remain committed to serve and protect the nutrition agenda of South Africa. Be honest. If you think about dietitians, you think about salads and weight-loss, right? It’s okay, we don’t blame you. Dietitians do want...
COVID-19 has shown how damaging ill-health can be for the economy. But it has also shown how measures that benefit health (lockdowns) can be seen as bad economic prosperity. A similar paradox is at the heart of promoting better diets. Poor diet is the world’s leading cause...
COVID-19 has revealed the deep fragility of the African food system and brought to the fore prevailing systemic injustices. Some indications suggest that as many as 34% of people in South Africa have gone to bed hungry during the lockdown. In Ghana disrupted food supply chains...