Children in the Eastern Cape are starving. So acute is the problem that desperate residents have begged the country’s president and the province’s premier to intervene.On Wednesday, health MEC Nomakhosazana Meth’s spokesperson, Mkhululi Ndamase, said that between April 2021 and September 2023 about 3,070 Eastern Cape children were treated for acute malnutrition and 1,314 were admitted to hospital for acute malnutrition.
The rising cost of food is crippling consumers, with many now forced to dig deep, find second jobs and rely on specials and store cards to get through the month, while others struggle to feed their families on woefully inadequate state grants.
Many families with empty cupboards, hungry mouths and broken homes have found sanctuary in the kindness of freelance photographer, biker and mother, Chantel Lombard, 39, from Amalinda. Every day, Lombard is up early on school drop-offs for her own two daughters and the “adopted” families of her NGO, Sunbeams Share Kindness, established in 2021.