New R336 000 Vehicle A Game-changer For Vaal-based Feeding Scheme
For Immediate Release:
24 August 2022
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Massively increased demand for food hamper assistance by poverty-stricken communities in the
Vaal area – exacerbated by the devastating health and socio-economic effects of the COVID-19
pandemic – was set to overwhelm Gauteng’s Roshnee Feeding Scheme, but a R336 000 vehicle
donation has proved to be a game-changer.
The organization currently prepares and delivers 3 200 hot meals and 750 sandwiches daily, using an
ageing vehicle with a very limited load capacity – often necessitating double trips to meet demand –
as the need for help continues to grow.
Whilst the organization’s kitchen was well positioned to increase meal output, distribution was
battling to cope with an appreciably increased demand for help. But no more… the South African
Muslim Charitable Trust (SAMCT) recently moved to assist the Roshnee Feeding Scheme, supplying a
brand-new vehicle to meet and exceed the organization’s current community reach.
Speaking at a recent function to mark the handover of the new vehicle, SAMCT representative, Mr.
Farouk Bayat, said: “With the effects of the pandemic and the current depressed economic climate,
the organization was fighting a losing logistics battle against reach and constraints associated with
delivery – a challenge which threatened to overwhelm the organization’s otherwise highly successful
system of assistance to the vulnerable.”
He described the impact of the pandemic on already poverty-stricken communities in the Vaal area
as ‘catastrophic,’ leaving in its wake parents scrambling for food to feed their children.
“These are really tough times and the scarcity of jobs and rising unemployment has further impacted
communities battling the cycle of poverty,” he said.
The Roshnee Feeding Scheme focuses on feeding the needy, providing some 80 000 hot meals,
13 000 sandwiches and 2 500 loaves of bread every month – a task it has undertaken here for the
Past 10 years.
Mr. Bayat added: “The organization’s primary focus is on children, who often run behind its delivery
vehicle to secure – in most cases – their only meal of the day. A tragic food security situation in a
country such as ours, and it is becoming worse.”
However, the SAMCT’s vehicle donation is regarded as something of a game-changer.
“Previously the organization’s only limitation was its ability to deliver food. With the advent of this
new vehicle, it is poised now to increase its reach, serving struggling communities in informal
settlements
The SAMCT was created in 2008, the result of a partnership between Old Mutual Unit Trusts and Al
Baraka Bank, for the creation, marketing, and distribution of a suite of Shariah Funds. This has
ensured that the SAMCT is the beneficiary of this Shariah suite of funds, enabling it to provide
funding, services and other resources for the improvement of the lives of the vulnerable, deprived
and disadvantaged.
It has been singularly successful in delivering sizeable assistance solutions throughout South Africa –
irrespective of race or religion – and continues to work to support needy organizations in the fields of
social development, poverty alleviation, education, and healthcare.
South Africa suffers one of the highest poverty rates in the world, with more than half the country’s
population living below the national poverty line.
“Children in struggling communities lack access to nutritional meals – critical to every child’s
development. The Roshnee Feeding Scheme is doing amazing work in the quest to address the
reality of true hunger and the SAMCT is proud to have been in a position to give further impetus to
the organization’s critical food provision endeavors,” Mr. Bayat concluded.
ends
For more information about SAMCT and its vehicle donation, please contact:
Rasheeda Motala
Social Responsibility Officer
Tel: 084 506 2280
Email: samct@samct.co.za