On 23 April 1997, the then state president of South Africa addressed the Food for Life festival, where about 30 000 children gathered for a programme organized by the Food for Life organization. At this meeting of the youth, he suggested that whenever he is with young people he feels like a recharged battery and looked forward to the youth to lead South Africa into the future. He stressed that children of South Africa need to be protected and they should not go hungry. He applauded Food for Life for its humanitarian initiative in creating hunger free zones and referred to these endeavors as being in the true spirit of Maskhane as envisaged by the democratic government.
Some 16 years later Food for Life has enduringly upheld its vision to distribute warmly prepared vegan food to about 5,000 school children daily.
On his 95th birthday 95 pots of pure vegetarian food was cooked for distribution to 25 000 school children across KwaZulu Natal. This free distribution included the poorer quintile ranked schools and targeted those schools that have no access to the Education Department’s feeding scheme. The identified schools straddled largely across KwaZulu Natal and Food for Life teams engaged in the distribution to mark this auspicious day. Specifically, the media was invited to observe the food distribution at Clareville Primary which was selected for its inclusion policy. Unarguably, it has admitted the largest number of refugee children and asylum-seekers over the years. Although these children might not have formal citizenship status of the host country, the principal, Mr Bhairoparsad, acknowledges their right to access education.
Food for Life South Africa, a section 18a company can be described as semi- autonomous, non-profit-making, self governing and campaigning organisations with a focus on the well-being of others and is characterised as an organisation whose stated purpose is the promotion of social goals. Specifically, the goal is to develop hunger free zones in South Africa.
