Tshepo Motsepe, the First Lady, has been a vocal advocate for nursing for numerous years since it is a critical component of ensuring that newborns receive the nutrition they require. Breastfeeding, on the other hand, is unlikely to be at the top of economists' and business experts' minds as they try to solve our present problem. It should be fixing a profoundly dysfunctional food system. This is the reason.
Annik Mooi, Shanique's mother, leaves her off at the local crèche every morning before walking 3 kilometers to her domestic worker job. Shanique's mid-morning snack is a package of chicken-flavored Spookies, a low-cost puffed maize chip laced with artificial colors, flavors, and preservatives. This is what the majority of the youngsters at the town's lone crèche will consume.
Shanique is one of the 60 children that have a seat at the crèche, which Annik is fortunate to have. In her tiny town, most parents rely on their neighbors to keep their children throughout the day so they can go to work. If they're lucky and have lived in the region for a long time, an extended family member may be able to assist them.
Shanique is handed a bowl of congealed yellow starchy porridge for breakfast shortly after arriving at the slightly decrepit crèche, after being insulted by the instructor who does not like it when she sobs when her mother leaves her. All she'll eat till her mother picks her up at 3.30 p.m. is oatmeal and a package of chips that her instructor consumes half of.
Shanique's food is insufficient to provide her with the energy she requires to study as well as enough fuel for her little body to grow. But it's the only ready-to-eat meal that her mother can afford, and it's available at the local spaza shop. It's also what the other kids have, and no one wants to be the odd man out.
Shanique, like other children her age, gets ill frequently, her nose runs, and she has a post-nasal drip. Her stomach lining becomes inflamed, and she becomes unable to eat. The less she eats, the longer it takes her body to fight off the virus, and the more unhappy she becomes and the less she can focus. Her recovery will be short-lived since her frail body is vulnerable to opportunistic infections.
Nothing she goes through prepares her for a future free of the poverty she has known her whole life. Her experiences, like those of the other 27% of children under the age of five in South Africa whose growth is hampered by inadequate nutrition, consign her to a life of hardship. This is appropriately referred to as "slow violence" by the South African Child Gauge.
This gradual aggression begins even before the birth of a kid. Thandi van Heyningen of the Institute for Security Studies discovered that food insecurity was one of the causes contributing to high rates of depression and suicide among pregnant mothers in South Africa. This has a direct influence on the emotional health, educational outcomes, and physical well-being of children.
There are a variety of reasons why youngsters like Shanique, as well as their parents, should be at the center of conversations about how to restore our society. First and first, this is an issue of rights that must be realized in order to achieve social justice. It is, however, the problem that will continue to perplex every finance, labor, commerce, and education minister for the next 20 years.
Shanique will have a hard time acquiring the soft and hard talents needed to expand our economy unless she receives caring care, stimulation, healthcare, and nutritious food during her youth.
She is unlikely to be able to assist in the resolution of the complicated challenges we will confront in the future years, and her salary will almost certainly have to be supplemented by state assistance. Skills training or young employment programs will not be able to provide her with what she requires later in life.
South Africa cannot afford to overlook the everyday catastrophe of food insecurity that children and their parents are experiencing. We will never be able to get out of the mess we are in today if we do so. We must guarantee that parents like Annik may buy or at the very least have access to a variety of inexpensive nutritious meals at their neighborhood spaza stores.
This implies that the government, agribusiness, economists, and planners must find out how to make fresh, high-quality vegetables available to moms like Annik at a reasonable price. To address the issue, the 2020 Child Gauge provides a number of practical proposals. The cabinet should think about these and make this a top priority.
