From the CEO: Transitioning from C19 Food Support to Job Opportunities
June 10, 2020
At the beginning of the Covid-19 lockdown in South Africa, Valcare made the decision to focus our immediate attention on providing food support to the vulnerable beneficiaries of our nonprofit member organisations.
Although nutritional support is not part of Valcare’s core focus, we felt that we couldn’t turn a blind eye and continue with ‘business as usual’ whilst the desperation of our neighbours were so evident.
The main intervention was to raise funds to help provide food to the most vulnerable families in the Cape Winelands by sponsoring essential grocery vouchers, distributing monthly household food parcels and supplying ingredients to soup kitchens.
Food Support Successes
We are proud and humbled by what has been achieved since April 2020. Through the collaboration of hundreds of member organisations, funders, volunteers, corporates and community members, Valcare’s Covid-19 Fund has managed to raise R2 565 852, as well as receive an additional R1 800 000 for a parallel Food Security Programme with Drakenstein Municipality.
The combined funds have aided the distribution of 3 683 monthly household food parcels and 4 983 food vouchers, and supported nine soup kitchens, that have in total enabled an estimate of 1 944 544 meals, after two months of operations.
Pivoting into Employment Opportunities
After careful consideration, Valcare has decided to conclude our food parcel and voucher distribution on 3 July 2020. We will continue to support soup kitchens with ingredients up until August 2020, where after we will be pivoting into a new programme.
Valcare and our strategic partners are initiating an innovative response to the pandemic in order to increase the active involvement of unemployed people and move away from dependency on food aid.
Valcare’s new Vuka programme will focus on working with organisations to enable public good service projects to generate income and benefit spaces in communities.
Vuka means ‘Rise Up’ in Xhosa and the programme aims to do just that: To awaken the spirit of people and to collectively renew the energy of communities to create resilience, optimism and active citizenry.
We are excited about this new endeavour, and also to refocus on our core mission: To activate and enable social change within communities of the Cape Winelands through social investment management, our membership network and strategic intervention programmes.
Ivan Swartz
CEO of Valcare
