The Afri-CAN Café, Philippi, Cape Town is pleased to announce the commencement of the Afri-CAN Free School Breakfast Programme. This programme will serve free school breakfasts to the most vulnerable children from local schools in the area between 6.45am and 8am each school day. The service will be available to up to 100 children for the entirety of the 200-day annual academic year.
With unemployment in South Africa at an estimated 37% and around 3.2 million children suffering from household hunger, the problem is acute. Hungry children under 8 years of age are likely to suffer permanent physical and intellectual development challenges. Stefan Allesch-Taylor CBE, Afri-CAN Charity Chairman said ‘This is one of those problems South African society faces that we cannot go back and fix at any time in the future, the damage to these kids can not be undone if it isn’t addressed in time!’.
The Afri-CAN Café Free School Breakfast Programme will work closely with all stakeholders including schools, parents and appropriate Government Agencies.
Stefan Allesch-Taylor continued ‘Key objectives of each of the Afri-CAN Cafés go beyond the creation of training, full time employment and co-operative ownership for each of the Café teams. We seek to and will continue to work with local communities to determine where a café can have a positive and significant local impact. The ability of each café to provide up to 20,000 free school breakfasts for non-fee paying school children each year is an obvious choice for us. In terms of impact assessment it’s going to be extremely rewarding for the Café teams to see the beneficiaries of this program and their progression.’