Desperate Eastern Cape grandmothers walk up to 5km to scrounge for leftover food at traditional ceremonies

They feel too embarrassed to be identified, but several desperate grandmothers in the Eastern Cape have recounted how they walk for as much as 5 kilometres to find traditional ceremonies where they can scrounge for leftovers.

They agreed that January would be the worst – when these ceremonies were over.

https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2023-12-15-help-daily-maverick-and-sa-harvest-put-meals-on-the-table-of-hungry-families-this-holiday-season/

School feeding schemes stopped providing meals after the last exam was written, leaving children to find food for themselves in December and much of January.

“Children are having a tough time,” said Linda van Oudheusden from the Missionvale Care Centre in Nelson Mandela Bay. 

“See how difficult it is to get them to smile for a picture. Their lives are very difficult.” 

While nobody who comes to the centre is turned away – some walk 20km to get there – the centre itself is struggling with the high cost of food. 

“We used to get bread at a special price of R6.50 – now it is R10. That’s R500,000 more in our annual budget.” 

She said the most vulnerable children in their care had been sent home with food parcels. 

“We are very worried about some of them.”

The Butterworth Hospital has issued an urgent plea for high-energy food supplies to treat both children and adults with acute malnutrition. 

“Butterworth serves a large population where malnutrition is of great concern,” a memo written by the nurses at the hospital reads. 

“A hospital-allocated budget of R30,000 per year [for nutritional supplements used to treat starving people] does not provide [for the number of patients who need it].”

The state facility has welcomed an offer by Gift of the Givers to help with infant formula, enriched maize meal, lactose-free nutritional drinks, ready-to-use therapeutic food and food parcels.

Corene Conradie from Gift of the Givers said they would be running a yearlong programme in Tholeni and Ndabakazi villages in Butterworth. 

Tholeni Village is where Bongeka Buso (38) killed her three children before hanging herself in her rondavel.

Read more in Daily Maverick: Desperate Eastern Cape mom kills starving children and hangs herself

Read more in Daily Maverick: Seven children starve to death, others fight for their lives while malnutrition ravages Eastern Cape

“When we pull up there to distribute food, you can see how weak people are. Many of them faint while standing in line … the elderly, children, young moms. They are so weak. They tell us that they beg until nobody can give anymore, then they try to fill up on water … then they just starve. 

“They share a 2-litre bottle of water for supper at night,” she said. “Many people are HIV positive.

“The elderly ladies in the villages are desperate to do something that can help them look after their children. They come to the soup kitchen to offer their help with anything,” said Conradie. 

“Often they have between six and eight young children at home – the child grant only lasts for two weeks. 

“They tell you they are not embarrassed to say that they are starving. They have had to say it too many times before.

“It breaks your heart because some of them are really old gogos and they come to beg for a job. They say they don’t want to wait for handouts every time.”

Nkosikazi Nosintu Gwebindlala, chairperson of the Eastern Cape Congress of Traditional Leaders, said it was vital to understand how the food crisis in the province was affecting grandmothers.

She emphasised biological parents needed to take responsibility for their children.

In roughly 80% of these cases, she said, children are simply abandoned by their parents. And for the rest, neither the grandparents nor the parents have enough information on how to access food welfare in the province.

“Where are the mothers of these children? Where are the social grants for these children?” Gwebindlala asked.

“We need to address the social welfare justice part, we need to dig deeper into the reasons, which include negligence,” she said. 

She added that they were trying to help consortiums of 10 or more women, with assistance from the Department of Agriculture, to grow their food. 

Read more in Daily Maverick: Desperate mom in Nelson Mandela Bay keeps infant alive with cooldrink powder as food crisis hits SA

Julia Mbambo, who runs soup kitchens in Nelson Mandela Bay’s Walmer township, said they were seeing an increase of around 200 people a day. Her budget has taken a knock, especially with having to feed up to 800 children daily.  

Due to escalating food prices, one of the soup kitchens can only open for five days a week. 

“It is the only place where the children can find food,” she said. DM