The small amount of 750 grams never mattered as much as when it’s dough transformed to bread, and when these loaves are destined for people waiting in queues for something to eat, anything really to take back to their families. 

It’s why 14-year-old *Zuzu has been waking up at 4am to do his bit. The teenager lives at Nkosi’s Haven Village in Alan Manor, in the south of Johannesburg. It’s a village that has its own needs, being a care facility and residency for mothers, children and orphans affected by HIV/AIDS. But since the first weeks of lockdown in South Africa, they’ve been baking bread for other charities and NGOs. They’re up to 450 loaves a day. 

Zuzu groans from behind his face mask as he strains to lift a hefty mound of dough from one work surface to another. It flops onto the metal counter. He gets to work quickly, sectioning off chunks to be weighed and shaped for waiting baking pans. 

“You get tired and it can be stressful trying to be on time with all the loaves we have to bake now, but it’s a good feeling to know we’re helping people who are hungry,” he says, still chirpy even though he’s been up for hours by mid-morning. 

The young residents of Nkosi’s Haven Village in Alan Manor south of Johannesburg get to work in the container bakery that was donated by the American professional baker Daniel Leader in 2006. Since the first weeks of lockdown in South Africa they’ve been baking bread for other charities and NGOs. 14 May 2020. (Photo: Chris Collingridge)

Zuzu is working inside the village’s shipping container bakery that was donated to Nkosi’s Haven by US professional baker Daniel Leader in 2006. The bakery is tiny and some things need fixing but it still runs like a well-oiled machine under Moni Rampola and helpers like Zuzu and Nthabiseng Nketu. Outside the container bakery, teens *Thato and *Zandi are also lending a hand in between school work. They sing songs, joke and chat as they place cooled loaves into plastic sleeves.

Back in the old-normal, the bakery produced 25 loaves a day for the residents’ own consumption and the moms at the village ran a small income-generating project filling orders from local schools and churches. 

Now they’re baking for free, operating on donations for ingredients and baking at capacity for whoever needs. 

“When the calls started coming in from other charities I thought, why not, we have to do something to help. We had anyway stopped baking our orders from schools and churches because of the lockdown,” says Gail Johnson, founding director of Nkosi’s Haven. 

“Lockdown has meant that people can’t move to different areas in the city to beg. Others were maybe getting something to eat from what restaurants threw out every day or from people’s leftovers from their restaurant meals. But that’s all gone because the restaurants are closed. People are also not allowed to do piece jobs, and waste pickers who had a small daily income aren’t getting that money any more,” says Johnson of lockdown hunger. 

Bheki Khumalo from the Ikageng welfare organisation in a near empty store room despite delivering 100 loaves of bread from the Nkosi’s Haven’s bakery at the Ikageng community centre, Orlando West, Soweto. The Ikageng welfare organisation usually helps to support homes where there are children affected by HIV/Aids but have since tried to help with emergency food parcels for those in need since the lock-down. 14 May 2020. (Photo: Chris Collingridge)

The disruption of people’s survival strategies, their informal networks and income stream coupled with restrictions on movement has elevated levels of hunger and food insecurity and concentrated it into zones. Charities have been caught short and their already stretched resources are now hopelessly pitted against heaving tides of need. 

George Msamango and Bheki Khumalo from the Ikageng welfare organisation in Soweto are seeing this tsunami of need first-hand. They arrive at Nkosi’s Village for an 11.30am bread pick-up. They’ve asked for 100 loaves daily, but Msamango says: “It’s just crumbs – we hand out these loaves but there will be 50 more people standing at the gates.” 

Before lockdown the Orlando West-based organisation that focuses on supporting homes where there are children affected by HIV/AIDS had 100 families on its database for government-sponsored monthly food parcels. By last week the list had grown to 490 with about 30 more people each day asking to be added. Getting on to government’s database is a slow grind of bureaucracy that’s out of sync with urgent needs.

Ikageng helps with emergency food parcels where it can and estimates that since lockdown it has given out around 3,000 food parcels but stocks are low now. Private donations of food are also unpredictable and random: on a mild autumn Thursday there are packets of crisps and boxes of choc-chip rusks to hand out.

Khumalo shrugs and sighs; he knows that what he has to give out that day has little nutritional value. 

“It’s very tough. We just have to tell people to come back tomorrow and hope there’s something else to give them,” he says. 

It makes the bread from Nkosi’s Haven truly the staff of life. But exactly as Msimango said would happen, in minutes the last loaves are distributed, and people still queuing have to be turned away. 

Queuing has come to feel like Charity Chila’s new normal. The Orlando West local is one of the dozens of people who have been sitting on chairs in Ikageng’s playground area, socially distancing and waiting for something to take home.

Charity Chila is unemployed and one of many people waiting in Ikakeng’s playground area for food to take home. 100 loaves of bread arrived from the Nkosi’s Haven’s bakery at the Ikageng community centre, Orlando West, Soweto. The Ikageng welfare organisation usually helps to support homes where there are children affected by HIV/Aids but have since tried to help with emergency food parcels for those in need since the lock-down. 14 May 2020. (Photo: Chris Collingridge)

She’s unemployed, and food and money have dried up, she says. For two days she’s queued outside the Sassa grant office that flanks Ikageng’s centre. Chila’s niece died a fortnight ago and she hasn’t been able to bury her. Chila’s niece’s child has also been left in her care and she’s applying for a grant.

“I have to buy Pampers and food and I have nothing,” she says. She fans out on the ground a death certificate, a birth certificate and other pieces of paper. She’s desperate for the stamps and signatures on the pages to work some kind of magic for the child grant to materialise.

The food runs out during the daily handout at the Ikageng community centre, Orlando West, Soweto. The Ikageng welfare organisation usually helps to support homes where there are children affected by HIV/Aids but have since tried to help with emergency food parcels for those in need since the lock-down. 14 May 2020. (Photo: Chris Collingridge)

She also has her own child to take care of and she walks with a crutch. She’s been told by Sassa officials to return in a week’s time. 

“I don’t know what I’m going to do till then; I was up from 2am this morning getting ready to come here and I still haven’t been attended to,” she says of trying to get a good slot in the queue. 

A Sassa official from the Orlando West office, who asked not to be named, says they only reopened on 11 May and are operating with one-third of their staff complement. 

100 loaves of bread arrive from the Nkosi’s Haven’s bakery at the Ikageng community centre, Orlando West, Soweto. The Ikageng welfare organisation usually helps to support homes where there are children affected by HIV/Aids but have since tried to help with emergency food parcels for those in need since the lock-down. 14 May 2020. (Photo: Chris Collingridge)

“We have a backlog and we are now working on a booking system. We know people are frustrated, but there’s nothing we can do,” she says, adding that she and colleagues arrive at work at 7am each morning to find people have slept outside the offices to be first in the queue. They’re only processing 40 new cases a day at this office, she confirms – Chila was number 57. 

Chila will have to wait another week to start paperwork for the childcare grant. In the meantime, “I have to come back to queue at Ikageng tomorrow because I have no choice, I need help with food,” she says, picking up her shopping bag of crisps, rusks and the loaf of Nkosi’s Haven bread. DM

*Full names withheld

* If you’re able to help please contact Gail or Lynn at Nkosi’s Haven Village on (011) 942-5580. Or Bheki, George or Carol at Ikageng Welfare Organisation (011) 536 0681.