What we do
Phase One
The initial purpose of the Meal SA campaign was a call to action by civil society to fund 100,000 x 12,5kg maize meal bags to distribute nationally through government social development depots and through the reach of the active NGOs on the ground that are active in serving humanity on a continuous basis ensuring an equivalent of close to 5 million meals will be provided to those in need across South Africa over the potential first few weeks of the lockdown.
While MealSA has provided supplemental food assistance, like the mielie meal, our partner organizations active on the ground have helped to compliment the mielie meal with other food products to make a wholistic hamper and provide other essential assistance needed by many households during the lockdown.
The initial MealSA milestone was reached, by the end of April 2020, merely a month from commencement.
Phase Two
Due to the observation of the impact of the Covid-19 continues as many have been in difficulty from day one especially in the informal settlements, we have initiated phase 2 of the campaign this time calling to action all of civil society organisations and individuals living in South Africa and financially capable to participate in this project together to enable 1 million bags of mielie meal to be distributed to those households in need over the next few months ahead.
In partnership with our rapidly growing partners and stakeholders that includecommunity structures, businesses, faith based organisations and government, we are working to grow a substantial fund of R60,000,000, that will provide for the procurement and distribution of bags of mealie meal nationally to vulnerable communities facing this pandemic with poor access to housing, health care and social safety nets.
Benefits of the collaborative Citizen Campaign
The collaboration to collectively raise community funds has prompted citizens to become active and initially participate specifically to purchase and distribute mielie meal through the coordinated efforts of those already active in prioritising the needs of the most vulnerable communities across South, especially the townships, that would be impacted by the national lockdown, has had the effect of also tracking and coordinating the distribution efforts of individual NGO’s distributing wholistic food hampers which included the mielie meal bags.
Donors have found it easy to contribute to a single bag of mielie meal and others have contributed to many as per their own financial capability. Many donors after understanding the additional contributions by the partner NGO’s have further become more active and financially contributed to NGO’s to purchase and distribute other food items to make a complete food hamper according to the geographical need.
“LET’S WORK TOGETHER TO FEED SOUTH AFRICA”