​The Gauteng Department of Social Development, in partnership with various Non Profit Organizations, is providing thousands of vulnerable citizens a daily, healthy meal through its provincial wide community nutrition and development centers (CNDCs).
According to the Gauteng Department of Social Development Sustainable Livelihood Directorate Community Developer Practitioner, Sithembile Ndhlebe, there are 28 physical and three mobile CNDCs in the province and they are awaiting two more mobile kitchen trucks, to add to the facilities used to cook and serve lunch to vulnerable individuals, five days a week.

The CNDCs’ cooks are qualified in basic food safety and regularly undertake additional training. All other employees complete an annual in-house training course on safe food practices and hold a basic food handling practices certificate.

"CNDC's are not feeding schemes, but development centers," explains Believers Society Care Program Manager, Alexander Iheme.

Iheme’ s NPO is one of the organizations tasked with running a CNDC mobile kitchen outreach program. They are currently at Thabo Mbeki Village, an informal settlement in Nooitgedacht on North of Johannesburg.

He said “There are feeding schemes everywhere in Johannesburg. We are here for three months during this period. We will be providing skills development training to the community so that they can exit the welfare system. We are currently providing a course in project management and basic kitchen repair.

These are NQF4 accredited qualification courses. During this period, we will provide them with a nutritional lunch.”

Weekly Bulletin spoke to some of the residents who are participating in the training. One such person is unemployed 47-year-old Mavis Sekai. She recently became unemployed after being discharged in July by the Bidvest Executives Plant, a subsidiary of Bidvest that rents fresh and artificial plants to companies, following strained relationships with her manager. Sekai survives on the money she gets from the Unemployed Insurance Fund (UIF) and is doing a project management course.

She said the skill acquired from this course will help secure employment and improve her curriculum vitae.” Our area is underdeveloped. There is more construction that will take place here, and these skills will be the most sought-after”.

Sekai adds that the provision of lunch to the beneficiaries is of help to them since a number of people are unemployed.

As the countries, including South Africa, marked World Food Day on Monday it is estimated that more than 13 million people are considered food insecure in South Africa. An adequate, healthy diet that satisfies humans needs for energy and all essential nutrients is provided by the CNDCs.

The program reaches poor and vulnerable communities living below the poverty line and provides skills development to women and unemployed youth to help them form social enterprises.

Food choices are considered very carefully to provide a menu that is sensitive to everyone’s needs and reflects the cultural differences that exist within our communities. The center feeds between 170 to 300 beneficiaries daily.