As a passionate defender of the right to food, we are sure that Nelson Mandela would have been proud of Ntobeko Mafu, a 22-year-old who commemorated Mandela Day by teaching her community how to produce their own food.
Mafu is the managing director of Madame Clucks A lot, a poultry and crop farm that specialises in agricultural skills training and development to enhance people’s livelihoods.
This week, Mafu in collaboration with Unicef South Africa, the Mary Memela Foundation and the University of KwaZulu-Natal hosted a community engagement session for the Ward 11 Nhlazatshe community.
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A source of empowerment
“It felt great to be able to give back to my community through my business,” Mafu said. “This is a program we collaborated on for celebrating Mandela Day. They brought goodies and hampers, while we provided the food and seedlings. We also donated free agri skills training to the community.”
Apart from feeding her community, Mafu also provides employment. Her desire to educate people about the importance of food security and give them the skills required to achieve this is what drives her every day.
Food for children
In another corner of the country, the Cape Agency for Sustainable Integrated Development in Rural Areas (Casidra) joined the nation in paying it forward by giving back to three community non-profit organisations in Paarl in the Western Cape.
Their handover included a variety of items (stationery, dry food and duvets/blankets) to Mosaic Paarl, the Athlone House of Strength and the Haven Night Shelter.
Mosaic Paarl is a home for orphans and vulnerable children. The organisation seeks to not only support these children but also their caretakers.
The Athlone House of Strength is a shelter for abused women and children that provides a stable, caring and safe environment to these women and children.
The Haven Night Shelter Welfare Organisation provides temporary shelter, physical care, social welfare and family re-unification services to adult homeless persons in the Western Cape. They also handed 72 stationery packs for Grades R to 7 to the Pebbles Project in Kraaifontein. The Pebbles Project enables children from farming communities to access quality education programmes and health, nutrition and social work services.
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