By Levy Masiteng
Ensuring that children have a decent meal is essential for their health and educational outcomes.
Recently, Tiger Brands along with the Mogale City municipality in Gauteng, extended the company’s in-school breakfast programme to Tsholetsega Primary School, where 1280 learners will be fed breakfast daily for the next five years.
As part of the launch, mayor Lucky Sele and Tiger Brands also donated 300 pairs of new school shoes to the most deserving learners identified by the school in Kagiso.
Sele expressed his appreciation to the company and the Tiger Brands Foundation for their dedication to developmental partnerships with the government.
“This is a practical demonstration of how public-private partnerships can yield tangible benefits for our communities. Feeding a child is not only a humanitarian imperative – it is a critical developmental investment in the future of our nation,” he said.
Tiger Brands, which opened a nearby state-of-the-art peanut butter manufacturing plant last year where its Black Cat Peanut Butter is produced, has a long history of investing in community development programmes that promote education, health and nutrition.
“As a leading food manufacturer and employer in the country, food security is an important social priority for Tiger Brands. Our socio-economic development strategy focuses on sustainably building resilience (and) food secure and healthy communities across South Africa by working with implementation partners who are experts in their respective fields,” said Tiger Brands chief legal and corporate affairs officer Joe Ralebepa.
“We are a proud member of the business community in the Mogale City municipality and are honoured for the opportunity to work with our stakeholders and partners to support the education and prospects of learners at Tsholetsega Primary School.”
The mayor’s office said that by providing nutritious meals to pupils, the programme was expected to improve attendance, attentiveness and overall educational outcomes.
“This programme reflects the city’s ongoing commitment to building developmental and resilient communities through targeted social programmes, intergovernmental cooperation and strategic corporate partnerships,” it said a statement.
Tsholetsega is one of two schools whose breakfast programme is sponsored by Tiger Brands at a total investment of R8,7 million over a five-year period. The second beneficiary is Phomolong Primary School in Henneman, Free State, where the company’s mill is based.
The Tiger Brands sponsorship of the two schools is an extension of its foundation’s existing and long-standing in-school breakfast programme in partnership with the Department of Basic Education’s National School Nutrition Programme.
Launched in 2011, the programme provides a daily nutritious breakfast to 55,000 learners across 68 schools in the most food-insecure communities across the country.
The company said more than 149 million meals have been served since 2011.
In addition to the daily breakfast, the foundation has donated 65 new school kitchens and renovated existing school kitchens at participating schools.
It said that to date, it has invested around R2 million on monthly stipends for food handlers, including for their accredited training in hygiene, food safety, food nutrition entrepreneurship and employment opportunities.
The schools are also provided with all cooking and dining utensils, such as spoons and bowls, and aprons for the food handlers.
INSIDE EDUCATION
