I am hoping that this first post in our Food Chain Forum, will serve as somewhat of a template for all your future Food Chains on this forum. As a start, pick a name that suits your chain, for easy reference, and include your area of operation in the title. To be fair, the name of this Food Chain is actually, the Ubuntu Army Food Chain (in terms of other mentions over the past 6 weeks), but for the purposes of this exercise, I have called it McLean Food Chain.
So here goes...
First, a little about your community/ your people.
I am working among the foreign community in the Point/ South Beach area of Durban. The majority of the community are refugees from all over Africa, including people from Burundi, DRC, Rwanda, Cameroon, Uganda, Nigeria, Somalia, Zimbabwe, Malawi and Mozambique. An Ubuntu tribe. The majority of these people have little or no social security, and rank, in my opinion as some of the most vulnerable, in that they can not earn money and can not return to their countries of origin. As far as I'm concerned, we all became simply African, with a shared destiny, when our borders were closed. At this point, I have, together with a Catholic priest, Father George from St Peter's in Point Road, generated a list of around 1000 families in need. It has been a massive amount of trial and error, but we are on the verge of consolidating a master, digital list that allows us to track the food security of our families on an ongoing basis.
Second, a little about your vision
At first, I set out, with the money I had, to feed 350 families for three weeks. That has expanded, and I am now contemplating more long term strategies for food security, especially as lockdown continues. We are hoping to feed all 1000 with the available funds and current donations, for perhaps another 3 weeks, at which point we will hope to have secured more funding. We are also looking at balcony gardening going forward.
Third, a little about your logistics
I have a Landcruiser single cab (literally the best pickup in the world!) which has hauled tons of food over the past 6 weeks. I also ask suppliers to deliver food directly to St Peter's. I have volunteers at the church from the community who all lend a hand in offloading and packing supplies and parcels. Having St Peter's as a base has been amazing as we have a degree of security, and the church itself has been turned into a feeding facility.
Finally, a little about what your needs
I am obviously looking for funding and donations of food (I'm sure this will be the over riding trend in most posts). I could really use an iPad 6 or 7 so as to track registrations and distribution, on the move.
I am sure there will be other things that you guys figure out that need to be included, so please use your creativity and imagination. I am hoping that this forum will allow people to find support for chains that they create, or are planning to create, and will allow for others to contribute time, money, food, logistics and energy to the food chains listed.
I am hoping that this first post in our Food Chain Forum, will serve as somewhat of a template for all your future Food Chains on this forum. As a start, pick a name that suits your chain, for easy reference, and include your area of operation in the title. To be fair, the name of this Food Chain is actually, the Ubuntu Army Food Chain (in terms of other mentions over the past 6 weeks), but for the purposes of this exercise, I have called it McLean Food Chain.
So here goes...
First, a little about your community/ your people.
I am working among the foreign community in the Point/ South Beach area of Durban. The majority of the community are refugees from all over Africa, including people from Burundi, DRC, Rwanda, Cameroon, Uganda, Nigeria, Somalia, Zimbabwe, Malawi and Mozambique. An Ubuntu tribe. The majority of these people have little or no social security, and rank, in my opinion as some of the most vulnerable, in that they can not earn money and can not return to their countries of origin. As far as I'm concerned, we all became simply African, with a shared destiny, when our borders were closed. At this point, I have, together with a Catholic priest, Father George from St Peter's in Point Road, generated a list of around 1000 families in need. It has been a massive amount of trial and error, but we are on the verge of consolidating a master, digital list that allows us to track the food security of our families on an ongoing basis.
Second, a little about your vision
At first, I set out, with the money I had, to feed 350 families for three weeks. That has expanded, and I am now contemplating more long term strategies for food security, especially as lockdown continues. We are hoping to feed all 1000 with the available funds and current donations, for perhaps another 3 weeks, at which point we will hope to have secured more funding. We are also looking at balcony gardening going forward.
Third, a little about your logistics
I have a Landcruiser single cab (literally the best pickup in the world!) which has hauled tons of food over the past 6 weeks. I also ask suppliers to deliver food directly to St Peter's. I have volunteers at the church from the community who all lend a hand in offloading and packing supplies and parcels. Having St Peter's as a base has been amazing as we have a degree of security, and the church itself has been turned into a feeding facility.
Finally, a little about what your needs
I am obviously looking for funding and donations of food (I'm sure this will be the over riding trend in most posts). I could really use an iPad 6 or 7 so as to track registrations and distribution, on the move.
I am sure there will be other things that you guys figure out that need to be included, so please use your creativity and imagination. I am hoping that this forum will allow people to find support for chains that they create, or are planning to create, and will allow for others to contribute time, money, food, logistics and energy to the food chains listed.