This festive season, join us in fighting child malnutrition in Nelson Mandela Bay | Daily Maverick

Estelle Ellis 2025-12-11T22:37:52.000Z

Daily Maverick and SA Harvest have launched their third annual festive season campaign to combat hunger in the Eastern Cape. This year’s focus is on supporting three holiday programmes. These initiatives are crucial for keeping children safe and fed during the school break, especially since the regular school nutrition programme is suspended for the year.

Earlier this year, Director-General of Health Sandile Buthelezi and the head of the Eastern Cape Department of Health delivered a presentation to the South African Human Rights Commission.

Buthelezi highlighted that, among other issues, it was of great concern that the Nelson Mandela Bay metro, which had not in the past suffered the high levels of severe acute malnutrition that had struck the Eastern Cape’s rural areas, now had among the highest levels of malnutrition in the province.

It's with this foremost in mind that Daily Maverick and SA Harvest will launch the third festive season campaign to relieve hunger in the Eastern Cape. This year, we will focus on three holiday programmes where children can be kept safe and fed, despite the school nutrition programme now being shut down for the year.

You can read about previous years’ campaigns here, here, here and here.

We will start in Nelson Mandela Bay but, if we receive enough support, we will extend the holiday programme nationally later in December and January.

Read more: More than two dozen children have starved to death in Nelson Mandela Bay in the past year

Daily Maverick editor-in-chief Jillian Green said proper nutrition is the foundation of a child’s physical and mental wellbeing, and access to it should not stop when schools close for the year.

“It is heartbreaking to see malnutrition rising in Nelson Mandela Bay and elsewhere in our country, but these buckets offer a tangible short-term solution - a veritable lifeline where the alternative is too horrible to contemplate. Daily Maverick readers have, in the past few years, generously helped us feed hundreds of children over the festive period. I have no doubt that they will do so again.”

Ozzy Nel, the CEO of SA Harvest, said: “Every December, the same harsh truth confronts us: hunger doesn’t go on holiday. But neither does humanity. These Buckets of Nutrition are more than food; they are a message to families in Missionvale that they have not been forgotten. When we place a bucket in a caregiver’s hands, we’re saying: ‘Your struggle matters. Your children matter. And we are in this with you.’”

The buckets are more expensive than last year, at R1,000 apiece. Still, they contain significantly more nutritious food products, a few treats and some cleaning materials that will be sufficient to carry families into the new year. Any donation towards a bucket will do; it isn’t necessary to contribute the full amount.

A Bucket of Nutrition contains the following:

10kg maize meal5kg rice2kg samp500g macaroni500g soup mix (dry)Tinned beans 2 × 410gBaked beansPilchards 1 × 400g500g soya mince400g peanut butter500g instant milk powderTinned mixed veg 2 × 4001kg potatoes/butternut1 pack Morvite/FutureLife econ packCooking oil 750mlSugar 1kgStock cubes 1 × 12-packSalt 500gSoup pack 500gMixed sweets value bag 400gExtra mixed sweets value bag 400gFamily biscuits 1 pack2 packets of jelly powderDishwashing liquid 750mlLaundry bar 1 bar1 bottle Jik / detergent (small)

Total estimated cost: R848

Our target this year is 2,000 buckets.

We have chosen to partner with three organisations that are running holiday programmes or assisting vulnerable children during this time because children are vulnerable when they cannot access school nutrition.

We support community workers who believe that holiday programmes can and will keep our children safe.

The Missionvale Care Centre, which runs an active holiday programme, Walmer Angels, which feeds children continuously throughout the holidays, and the MTR Smit Children’s Home.

We decided to support the Missionvale programme and the programme at Walmer Angels because the women in both instances are already feeding and supervising children, they understand household dynamics and can accurately determine beneficiaries, they know which families are most vulnerable and they are trusted by the community to ensure safe, dignified, organised distribution.

We will also help the MTR Smit Children’s Home with buckets.

Tanya Eales from the MTR Smit Children’s Home explained that they need some food to send home with vulnerable children in their care. These kids are allowed to go home to their families for the festive season, but then often do not have sufficient access to food over the festive period. The home is trying its best to address this issue.

As always, we know that we can, once again, deliver a Christmas miracle to these families in need.

These are the banking details for SA Harvest:

Please use your name, surname and 'DM' as a reference. If you would like to remain anonymous, you need only use 'DM' as a reference.

SA HarvestBusiness Platinum AccountFirst National BankAccount Number: 62693490478Branch Code: 255955 (Randpark Ridge)Swift: FIRNZAJJ

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