Malnutrition damages both mental and physical development of children. But what they don’t realise is that 25% of South Africa’s children currently suffer from prolonged lack of nutrition (source: Oxfam). 19% of children don’t get breakfast at home and 51% don’t take lunch to school (source: Given Gain).

To tackle this important issue we created the Afri-CAN Charity Free School Breakfasts program.

We currently serve around 60,000 free school breakfasts a year to vulnerable children between the ages of 1 to 6. We’re going to grow this to 100,000. The breakfast consists of:

• 44g raw natural oats (no salt and soaked overnight)
• 1.5 tea spoons of natural raw unfiltered unboiled honey
• Full fat milk
• Fruit

For children born in South African townships, opportunities and resources are scarce. Their greatest chance of making it out of extreme poverty is education, but they can’t learn effectively without proper nutrition, as a child’s brain function is seriously compromised without a healthy breakfast (Source: Medical Daily) . That’s why we ensure that the children are fed well at the very early stage of their lives, so they can be given the best chance to fulfil their full potential.

“Our aim is to ensure that every child in need between 1-6 years old  has a healthy low GI breakfast every school day morning during this key foundation phase of their brain development. We want them to be warm, dry and safe and be surrounded by amazing teachers who help them develop healthily so that by the time they are in front of that blackboard in Grade R they are ready to learn.  These children are the future Mandela’s of our country.” Camille Paterson – Program Director

To see the most up to date figure on how many breakfasts we have served so far please click here.

Read about How we are beating malnutrition with the Free School Breakfast Programme

[pullquote cite=”Nelson Mandela” type=”left, right”]Overcoming poverty is not a task of charity, it is an act of justice[/pullquote]