The need for food support like soup kitchens by non-profit organisations keeps expanding in South Africa as the country grapples with hunger and widespread unemployment. 

But these organisations are struggling to stay afloat as they receive less and less funding and can’t keep up with the overwhelming need in communities.

The chief executive director of the SA Red Cross Society, Molefe Jeremiah Takalo, says the organisation is having to cope — and compete — with issues such as Covid-19, the war in Ukraine, the KZN floods and the aftermath of the July 2021 riots, with more and more South Africans falling below the poverty line.

The food garden that helps feed the Daveyton community is one of the many programmes the Red Cross Society spearheads in South Africa. (Photo: Supplied)

“We have lost a huge chunk of our funding and for the first time we have consistently had to supplement food kitchens from our reserves, which can be unsustainable as the funds and goods are going out, but we are not replenishing them. Unfortunately, we are unable to cater to as many people as we could before,” said Takalo.

The SA Red Cross Society is a member organisation of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, which has a presence in more than 189 countries and 100 million members. It is one of the largest volunteer-driven organisations in the world and survives through donations from businesses, governments and a wide range of individuals.

In the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic, Redflank, a specialist management consultancy, found that 76% of South Africa’s businesses had reported revenue losses.

Takalo linked that to the R50-billion economic damage from the 2021 riots and says the pool of funders kept drying up as a result. 

“When we wanted to respond to the social distress, there were few businesses that were stable enough to make sizeable contributions.” As a worldwide organisation, Red Cross branches reach out when a single country has an immediate need, but Takalo says the war in Ukraine has had a ripple effect that called for resources to be diverted there. 

“Ordinarily, people aren’t keen to volunteer their services in general, but now it’s even more difficult because normally there was the hope of being absorbed in the organisation and getting an income. We have had to lose a lot of volunteers, over 90% are unemployed so we provided stipends; we had to cut our expenditure and that included the stipend we would give volunteers.

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“So it’s difficult to attract new volunteers because there is no incentive for people to continue this hard work. We are battling because we can’t do work electronically, we need people to knock on people’s doors, assess the need, and get the services to the people,” he said. 

“Volunteers helped us provide for psychosocial needs because you can’t only take care of the material needs. For example, during the floods in KwaZulu-Natal, people experienced immense trauma, mothers losing their children in the floods and never finding their bodies, so we have lay counsellors that saw the process of healing through — we need more of that, there is a shortage of psychologists, of social workers in the country, and there is a lack of access for impoverished communities.” 

Sandra van Oostenbrugge of The People’s Pantry, an NPO that provides food for the underserved communities in Inner City Johannesburg, says the pie keeps getting smaller and that this is further marginalising groups such as migrants, who are the first to be excluded when the resources don’t meet the demand. 

“I have seen heartbreaking situations where migrants are told they can’t receive food, and the narrative from our leaders right now is pushing this divide and blame. We have had challenges as a team keeping up with the need, but we make do with what is available,” said Van Oostenbrugge. 

The People’s Pantry is struggling with issues such as transport to collect donated food and needs donations of starch like rice or mielie meal. It also needs a consistent gas supply for its six community kitchens and cash donations to cover its monthly overheads. 

Despite the challenges, Takalo is hopeful they can get back to helping as many people as possible while retaining their volunteers.

“We will survive this. We do still have supporters who donate and we assist where we can. It’s, unfortunately, less than we did in previous years, but we will survive. 

“The organisation has been here for over 150 years, and you can imagine the dips in economies the organisation has gone through. Even though post-Covid issues and the Ukraine war may continue to exacerbate the current state of social ills for the next couple of years, we have to believe it’s not all doom and gloom. 

“We look to different places for donations and assistance so we can continue to help as many people as we can,” said Takalo. DM/MC