R455 000 Vehicle Donation Enables Expansion of Vital Nutrition and Early Childhood Development Activities on Lower South Coast
For Immediate Release:
19 October 2022
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Rapidly growing demand for early childhood development and nutritional support in the remote
rural areas of the Ugu District and Winnie Madikizela Mandela local municipality areas, quickly
outgrew and constrained a charitable organisation’s effective service ability, until the South African
Muslim Charitable Trust (SAMCT) recently intervened with a critical vehicle donation.
Port Shepstone-based Impande Grassroots Development reaches 20 000 children attending some
650 early childhood development centres, whilst also assisting with a nutrition relief drive in
historically disadvantaged and under-served outlying areas.
Critically high levels of food insecurity, the consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic fall-out, the
inaccessibility of school meals, growing unemployment and widespread poverty has pushed the
organisation’s service ability to the brink and limited transport has prevented the necessary
expansion of its humanitarian services.
Speaking at a recent event to mark the official handover of a R455 000 vehicle to Impande Grass
Roots Development, SAMCT representative, Mr Gaff Osman, said: “Effective transport is the
lifeblood of any organisation operating in KwaZulu-Natal’s remote rural areas.”
“This organisation reaches out to some of this province’s most vulnerable, deserving and isolated
communities, distributing nutrition to early childhood development centres, co-ordinating learning
group meetings, undertaking training and mentoring for early childhood development practitioners
and conducting centre assessments, as well as identifying new opportunities to establish such
centres.”
“Expansion into new areas has, however, pushed the organisation’s present fleet of vehicles to the
absolute limit, negatively affecting its ability to properly meet the rapidly growing needs in far-flung
and out-of-the-way regions of KwaZulu-Natal’s lower south coast and hinterland.”
He said that the SAMCT had been quick to respond upon learning of Impande Grass Roots
Development’s fleet issue, providing an additional vehicle which it believed would make a
considerable difference to the organisation’s day-to-day operations.
“Growth and brain development are dependent on both good nutrition and high levels of
stimulation. Nutrition and early childhood development activities, therefore, clearly go hand-in-
glove and it is critical that we reach as many infants as possible, bringing both nutrition and
development tools to those responsible for them in order to ensure improved growth and
development outcomes in children now and into the future,” Mr Osman added.
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.
The SAMCT provides 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 organisations in the fields of social development, poverty alleviation, healthcare
and education.
Mr Osman said that the new vehicle would be mainly utilised to deliver nutritional support, reaching
some 12 127 children, whilst also enabling staff to better conduct their normal fieldwork.
“It is our hope that this additional vehicle will significantly impact on Impande Grass Roots
Development’s ability to take its services ever-deeper into the more distant parts of our province,
bringing their vital combination of nutrition and childhood development activities to increasing
numbers of KwaZulu-Natal’s infant population,” Mr Osman concluded.
ends
For more information about SAMCT or its Impande Grass Roots Development vehicle donation, please contact:
Rasheeda Motala
Social Responsibility Officer
Tel: 084 506 2280
Email: samct@samct.co.za