Don't Forget About Africa
Service Project
The “Don’t Forget About Africa” project has the principle goal of improving the infrastructure of schools in Africa, as well as their learning environments.
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Last summer, during a service project in South Africa, I had the opportunity to learn about the poor conditions that kids face daily to go to school. According to UNICEF, “66 million primary school-age children attend classes hungry across the developing world, with 23 million in Africa alone.” When my project ended, I promised myself that I would fight ceaselessly in order to start my own project to help African kids. Therefore, I came up with the Don't Forget About Africa Service Project.
This summer I will be flying to South Africa and I will be building a kitchen at the Lwaleng Primary School, which will feed 800+ kids on a daily basis. The school is a non-fee paying, feeding scheme school with over 800 students. As the parents do not pay monthly school fees, the school does not receive enough money to cover all the running expenses. With a growing number of learners in the school, they are increasingly aware of the need for a fully functional kitchen. Currently, the preparation of the food occurs in very unhygienic areas. The cooks don’t have a store room in which to keep the utensils and their current kitchen is a shelter with a low wall around it. When it is raining, they struggle to get the fire ready for cooking because the rain blows into the cooking area. The dusty conditions also affect the hygiene of the cooking and preparation area, especially when the wind blows. Furthermore, the working surface for food preparation is insufficient. Thus, Don’t Forget About Africa is a project that will have a big impact in the lives of many families, and by having this kitchen, these kids will be able to enjoy a better quality of food, and will not have to worry about the dangers of food poisoning or diseases in general.
