Victoria Falls helps itself with 100,000 free children's meals

Yesterday the Victoria Falls Children's Feeding Programme, established to provide regular free meals to school-age children across the town, reached a landmark of 100,000 meals served since it started in mid-July.

Service time at one of the seven community kitchens.

It has been estimated that more than three quarters of workers in Victoria Falls have been unemployed since the implementation of the international tourism close-down at the end of March. A significant portion of those retained by the industry are on reduced hours and pay.

The programme is the result of huge efforts on the ground as businesses and communities have joined forces to establish and then scale up this huge operation. Hotels and lodges have donated perishables including vegetables and salads from their kitchen gardens, national and regional companies and businesses donated other food supplies, allowing provision of nutritiously balanced meals. Local restaurants have enrolled their staff to help prepare ingredients and tourism operators have provided supporting storage and transport logistics.

Service time at one of the seven community kitchens.

Grateful thanks to the amazing individuals making all this happen on the ground, including Russell Manenji, Executive Chef at Shearwater Explorers Village (external link, opens in a new window), who leads the programme and the daily organisation of the kitchens, menus and food preparation (together with support from Chef Ngamani of the Victoria Falls Safari Lodge Boma), Gail van Jaarsveldt, Dani Connolly and Christie Brookstein from the Jafuta Foundation (external link) and the whole of the Pastor’s group who have worked tirelessly to set up the programme.

Gail van Jaarsveldt of the Jafuta Foundation is leading fundraising efforts to support this much needed programme: "We are appealing for those of you that can, wherever you are, to please join hands with us so that the community food kitchens can continue for as long as they are needed. As a result of all the amazing local food donations it only costs 25c to provide each meal. The kitchens are now serving well over 4,000 children every day - meaning we need to find over $1,000 each day to keep this incredible project running!"

For more information - www.victoriafallsappeal.com

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Further Information

The Pastors Counselling and Community Support Group has been central to the introduction of this programme. This group is made up of representatives from the Union for the Development of Apostolic Churches in Zimbabwe Africa (UDACIZA), the Evangelical Fellowship of Zimbabwe (EFZ), Zimbabwe Council of Churches (ZCC), and Victoria Falls Ministers Fraternity among others and is open to all Christian affiliations.

Utilising seven churches and school locations across Chinotimba and Mkhosana, the Children’s Feeding Programme, organised by the Pastoral Counselling and Community Support Group and the Victoria Falls Covid-19 Taskforce, aims to supply one meal per day, Monday to Friday for school-age children in the region. It is estimated that there are approximately 8,000 children enrolled in different schools across Victoria Falls.

The Victoria Falls Covid-19 TaskForce was established by Government, local Council and Municipality departments, tourism stakeholders, community groups and concerned residents to develop a coordinated response and preparedness strategy in the face of the global pandemic and collapse of tourism in Victoria Falls.

The TaskForce Food Security Group, together with the support of local tourism operators, community groups, charitable foundations and concerned individuals have launched fundraising appeals and targeted the delivery of its support through several key area initiatives and programmes.

Launched on 14th July, the first day of the Children's Feeding Programme opened with two community kitchens serving over 400 children, and one week later all seven community kitchens were operational, with a total of 14,314 meals served over the first 7 days of the programme. By the second week of the Programme over 4,000 meals were being served each day.