Kelly's work in Cape Town, South Africa.

To learn a little bit about our work in Cape Town read a part of my travel journal on the right.

To learn more about the ANSA's global nutrition program click the link:

Association of Nutrition Service Agencies

Ikamva Labantu

These are a few snippets of the news stories I read while in South Africa, along with my personal thoughts on the issues:

One day last week the temperature reached a record high. That day at Boulders beach 65 baby penguins died in the extreme heat, a makeshift tent was later built to protect survivors. We visited the beach two days later. Being an avid animal lover, this news was particularly distressing for me. We must be more proactive in decreasing global warming.

The ten worst places to be a child: Kids are starving in South Africa, most of them located in the Eastern Cape province. 12 million children live in poverty in SA, 4 million of these children are starving with up to 40% of them suffering stunted growth development. Childhood malnutrition has long-term repercussions on each individual and society. Non-governmental organizations such as Ikamva are working hard to address these problems. We need political action to support the Millennium Goals and eradicate hunger from our world.

40,000 child deaths could be avoided each year by improving primary health care systems including patient care and HIV/AIDS interventions. According to the recent report, Every Death Counts, 260 mothers, babies, and children die every day in South Africa. It is a crime against humanity that women and children continue to die at such extraordinary rates from complications of pregnancy and/or childbirth. Researcher found that over half of these deaths could have been prevented through delivery of primary health care services and ante-natal care 

Celebrating South African Culture

South Africa has a rich history. I heard a wonderful thought while attending a local performance. An indigenous arts performer, Jethro Louw, said, "Why rush to tomorrow when yesterday lays uncovered?" 

Jethro reminds us to remember and study the past, encourages us to learn the history, and to revive forgotten cultures. 


 


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A view of a portion of Cape Town water front and the Lion's Head and Rump from the edge of Table Mountain.

Nutrition Expedition to South Africa

Through my work with Lifelong AIDS Alliance, I was invited to join the Association of Nutrition Services Agencies' (ANSA) nutrition team on a trip to South Africa. Here we are working with an NGO (non-governmental organization) called Ikamva Labantu (translated this means: The Future of Our Nation) to help them integrate nutrition services into their programs. This is the second trip for some of the members of our team, and it is my first trip.

February 29 - March 2, 2008

Our team includes our leader, Mary Reed, from ANSA in Washington, DC; Patrick, also from Lifelong; Rosario, from Community Servings in Boston; and Ben from AIDS Project  Los Angeles. Patrick and I left Seattle on March 28th and arrived in Cape Town after about 23 hours of travel on the 29th...I was very excited not to have missed the leap year!

After arriving at our guest house at around 11pm we were of course exhausted and retired to our rooms for the evening. The next day Rosario and Patrick took Ben and I on a walking tour from our neighborhood to the waterfront. It was a gorgeous day - it is fall here and the weather has been in the 70s during the day with plenty of sunshine (hooray for vitamin D!) and in the 60s in the evening with comfortable breezes.

The waterfront is littered with all varieties of tourist shops, a large mall, and many different restaurants. There are many locals and tourists out and about enjoying the sun. Just off the shore one can see Robben Island, the home of the prison that confined Nelson Mandela for so many years. We had lunch a wonderful Portuguese cuisine restaurant. I had a gorgeous chick pea salad and sweet potato fries.

On Sunday we went to Table Mountain, taking a cable car nearly straight up to the summit. From the top of Table Mountain you can see 360 degrees around Cape Town and the surrounding townships, it was absolutely amazing. We hiked around the top of the mountain for about 2 hours. The foliage included a variety of succulents that I have never seen before. We saw several small lizards climbing about the rocks. Unfortunately I didn't see any rock dassies, a small relative of the elephants that looks similar to a Colorado prairie dog. 

After our trip to Table Mountain we went to lunch a The Manhattan Cafe, a trendy cafe and bar near our guest house. I had a small salad and an aubergine (eggplant) dish that was a consistency similar to lasagna. After resting for a bit we met up for dinner at The Nose, a restaurant where the waiters where shirts that say "Thanks for picking us on the back"! I had some broccoli cheese soup (quite yummy!) and a penne pasta dish.

A notable experience for me is that everywhere we have gone all the service people have been blacks or "colored" (Indians and mixed race) people, while nearly all of the customers have been white. So while apartheid has ended, racial divides are still very deep in this county. Also, while we can appreciate the gorgeous tourist offerings of Cape Town, this not how many South Africans live...

Working in the Townships

Ikamva Labantu has a complex program that reminds me of the Bangladesh Integrated Nutrition Program, however this is a totally different context - political and social and this program is run completely by an NGO, not the government. The organization's many services currently includes home-based community workers and community centers providing services and support to seniors, mothers, young children, vulnerable children, and fostering women through senior center activities, child care centers (crèches), meal programs, and community gardens. It's an exciting amount of information to absorb. This morning we learned more about the issues facing home-based care workers as they provide services to those in need in their communities. Poverty, unemployment, HIV and other STIs, lack of resources including food, limited access to medical facilities - these are barriers to improving health of the people living in townships surrounding the city. 

After meeting with the home-based workers we met with a group of grandmas who were having lunch in the senior center - currently a room within the community center. Many of these women suffer from arthritis, problems with vision, diabetes, heart disease, and are obese. They told us about how it is cheaper for them to purchase flour, rice, mealy mealy, and samp to feed themselves and their children/grandchildren then to buy healthful vegetables and fruit. Many of them have between 8-10 people living in their homes. There is a term for what we are witnessing in Africa - "nutrition transition" - experiencing macronutrient (caloric) malnutrition and starvation alongside obesity and micronutrient malnutrition. Many of the chronic diseases we see in the states are presenting themselves here including diabetes, high blood pressure, and heart disease. 

Next, we traveled through the townships to another site. The townships for the most part consist of thousands of shacks build from scrap metal - much of which has been taken from abandoned construction projects and buildings. There are also small single family homes, many of which have shacks built up in their yards - allowing someone to build a shack on your property is a way to earn some extra income. Until recently many of the townships did not have waste facilities, and many of them still do not. However, there have been some improvements including the building of community toilets. 

We visited a home where one mama is currently caring for 14 foster children with little government support to feed and cloth the children. Ikamva Labantu is helping to support her care of the children ranging from several months in age to 19 years. 

Later that afternoon we visited a crèche in one of the townships. I now know what the sound of over one hundred small children sound like when they all greet you at once! The five crèche carers look after just over 100 children whose parents pay to leave them there while they go to work. Some parents aren't able to pay for the care service and they are able to leaver their children too. That's about 20 children per care giver to manage! It's actually more because of one the carers is the cook who is often in the kitchen preparing either breakfast or lunch for the children. There are children ranging from ages 0-5 years of age and they are organized into an L shaped space by age - the young babies laying on mats, the 2-3 year olds in another portion of the room, and the 4-5 year olds in the largest portion of the room. The children sang several songs to us and engulfed the space around our legs. One little boy gently wrapped his arms around my legs to give me a hug. They were so lively and curious about us. When we left, I said goodbye to the young children and quickly learned a traditional way of saying "it's cool" or even "goodbye" by saying "shaarp" while simultaneously touching one's thumbs up sign to another's thumb...a moment after I caught onto this, I was surrounded by children wanting me to touch their thumbs as well. It was a beautiful way to leave the crèche. 

After the crèche we visited the site of one of the community gardens where they are growing aubergine (eggplant), peppers, celery, herbs, and many different greens. The plan is to build a health center on the same property. I love that the organization seeks to have a mission that combines food production with preventative health services. 

We then returned to our guest house and went to the Fireman's Arms for dinner. It's a nice pub with all sorts of varieties of food. I ordered a salad and one of the most garlic filled pizzas I've ever had - it was delicious. The irony of spending the day with people who do not have enough food to feed themselves and their families and our ability to leave that environment and have a meal with almost overwhelming amounts of food was not something that escaped our minds and hearts as we shared our dinner. I am reminded that I have much to be grateful for. And each day I am honored to participate in this work.

As they say, "Shaarp!"

~Kelly 

 
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