Lillian Anderdorp (76) lives in a tiny house in the poverty-stricken Cape Town township of Uitsig. Her walls are painted pastel pink and, in an effort to make the place cheerful, she has thrown a patchwork quilt, sewn in giant squares of red, green and brown, over her bed.
But Anderdorp’s home remains cold, cramped and dark despite her efforts. Every winter the Cape rains come flooding in because the house, which was not built properly, is sunk into the ground.
A little while ago Anderdorp placed a concrete slab across the front door in an effort to keep the water out. She is arthritic, so each time she entered her home she had to lift each leg, carefully, over the slab.
One morning Anderdorp tripped over the concrete slab. Her legs were cut so badly she could not walk.
The elderly woman survives on a government pension of R570 a month, with which she must feed her three unemployed adult children. For several months she lived with the festering sores ? she could not afford to get the clinic because she had no money for bus fare.
Then she met Magdalene Siqaza, who works for the War against Malnutrition, Tuberculosis and Hunger project (Warmth) in Cape Town.
Siqaza realised that Anderdorp needed care ?not only medical care, but emotional and material support.
She caught a bus to an Uitsig clinic where she explained her work to the doctor there, and received a hefty supply of ointment and plasters for Anderdorp. Through Siqaza’s regular visits, Anderdorp’s wounds healed.
Siqaza now gives Anderdorp coupons for a Warmth community kitchen, so that she can get food for herself and her family.
The people of Uitsig see Siqaza and Sister Lyette, who also works for Warmth, as miracle workers. The two women, however, never glorify their work. They are simply aware, they say, that when you meet deep neglect and deprivation with care and concern, people’s lives are fundamentally changed.
There are many such stories about the work of Warmth workers in Uitsig and other communities across the Cape Flats.
Warmth, a non-profit organisation and one of the oldest feeding schemes in Cape Town, is a project of umbrella organisation Catholic Welfare and Development. It operates in the most vulnerable areas of Cape Town including Khayelitsha, Guguletu, Mannenberg, Nyanga and Mitchells Plain.
“Warmth is a project I really believe in,” says Heather Robinson, public relations and social responsibility specialist for Nestlé, which has funded Warmth since 1993, increasing its funding every year.
“Business must build its reputation not only on the basis of real growth, but also on ethical conduct and social commitment. Warmth fits in with Nestlé’s ideals of creating employment, improving nutritional status of communities and uplifting communities in general.”
Robinson says she “has yet to come across a similar project to Warmth in this country. I am passionate about this project. It really does bring warmth into communities.”
The project has three fronts:
- It provides about 9Â 000 low-cost meals a day to hungry people from its 35 kitchens, which are run as businesses by local women;
- It provides wide-reaching education on nutrition and health issues, including the HIV/Aids pandemic;
- It promotes the business skills of the current kitchen operators and of new operators coming to the project.
Health experts say that one in three South African children are stunted by the time they reach school-going age because of diseases stemming from malnutrition.
The vision of Warmth is that “no child in Cape Town need go to bed hungry,” and its kitchens provide meals for as little as 60c for a plate of stew and 20c for a cup of soup. Coupons are available for those who cannot afford to pay for meals.
About 10% of people in the world who die from hunger are victims of famine. The other 90% die from less visible forms of malnutrition: diarrhoea, stunting and wasting. These conditions are common in the sprawling informal settlements of Cape Town, where the levels of hunger, tuberculosis and HIV/Aids are dangerously high. It follows that if people do not eat healthily, they are much more likely to succumb to disease.
Fikiswa Gwadiso has been running a Warmth kitchen in Khayelitsha for the past 11 years and has become a pillar of her community.
“This kitchen is helping me to survive,” says Gwadiso. “Because of this business I can raise my two children and make a living. And it is feeding so many people in the community ? around 400 every day.
“There are other women who work with me at the kitchen, and we make sure we cook at least three meals a day. I can see it making a big difference to the growth of the schoolchildren. Many of them were stunted and they had the signs of malnutrition before ? big bellies and shiny cheeks. You could see they needed nutritious food. Over the years I have watched them grow into big, healthy girls and boys, because of the food they eat here.
“We also have people with HIV/ Aids and lots of people with TB. We keep on telling them they need well-balanced meals to get better and we talk to them about their disease. Many of them don’t have jobs, so they get coupons from the clinic or doctors, which Warmth pays for. The doctors make sure they come to the kitchen.”
Nestlé’s partnership with Warmth began in 1993 when Poppie Huna, the founder of the Cape Town-based Community Kitchen Network, the precursor to Warmth, was awarded the first Nestlé Community Nutrition Award.
This award was launched in November 1993 in recognition of women who strive to improve the nutritional status of their communities through food, nutrition and/or agricultural projects that reduce hunger and malnutrition.
A positive spin-off of Warmth, says Robinson, is that the skills of the women who run the kitchens are developed. They are helped to earn an income and to employ other people ? “and that,” she said, “is what true development is”.