A local organisation keep children fed

MBOMBELA – A registered non-profit organisation has kept on feeding over 1 100 vulnerable children located throughout Mpumalanga during the Covid19 coronavirus lockdown.

Sinani is based in Mbombela and partners with community-based projects to grow each one into a fully operational life centre, at which orphans and vulnerable children are known by name, cared for, fed and helped with homework.

“Many of our children are orphaned and staying with other family members or friends. This puts a burden on those who the children live with, so our aim is to alleviate some of that burden,” said Brenda Rebro, CEO of Sinani.

“Each of our centres is a place that gives hope and an opportunity for the children to reach their full God-given potential,” she said.

Rebro said other children live in vulnerable situations, many in single-parent homes, others in child-headed households.

“Outside of the lockdown, the children come to the life centres from Monday to Friday, after school,” said Rebro.

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Its centres feed anywhere from 60 to 180 children per day, depending on the centre.

Sinani serves food that can be prepared in large quantities, like maize meal, beans, cabbage, chicken feet and soup.

“Sinani is more than a feeding scheme and we spend lots of time with the children at the centres. We build relationships with the care workers who run the centre, as well as with the children and youth. We listen to their problems. We become family.”

Sinani channels resources to the centres, such as training and skills development for the care workers, as well as connections to people in the community who can volunteer their time and talents, activities and development – such as drama clubs, the Sinani Premier Soccer League, cycling clubs and others.

“Of course, with the lockdown, we are unable to have this type of contact with the children, so we must at least make sure their tummies are fed so that they stay healthy,” said Rebro.

She said that the children have very good relationships with their care workers and when they came by for their food as the lockdown was starting, the care workers informed them that they can no longer come to the centre – as was published in the recent Government Gazette.

“Prior to the lockdown, our Sinani team visited all of our centres to help educate them about Covid-19, give proper hand-washing instructions and help to dispel misinformation,” said Rebro.

During the lockdown, its centres provided small food parcels to some of the most desperate families. This was food that the centres normally cook.

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“Now that the lockdown has been extended, it is important that we provide food parcels to the remaining families and top-up the small parcels we initially distributed, as they are now depleted.

“We will be distributing food parcels to each centre and the care workers from each centre will hand deliver the parcels to the homes of the children.”

Its current plan is to deliver food that will provide for the families for the next couple weeks.

Should the lockdown need to be extended again, Sinani will provide additional parcels.

“We are working on logistics for parcel delivery and purchasing of the items. We will most probably be doing a helicopter drop to Oakley in Bushbuckridge,” she said.

Parcels consist of maize, beans, cooking oil, salt and sugar.

They would appreciate any donations or food, such as fruit and vegetables.

Banking details are available at www.sinani.org or contact Rebro on 062-286-1800 or connect@sinani.org.