Development is about people’ lives being moved towards better lives: better health and welfare, education that empowers for good deeds, enjoying and protecting nature, experiencing a good social life with lots of care and friendship. We live in a world of plenty, but only half of the world’s population have basic access to shelter, food, health and education.
We believe in people as the main driving force of development, as only they really know the challenges of poverty, and they have the day to day knowledge of how to survive.
Together with the people in the communities we work with our numerous partners to meet the Sustainable Development Goals, creating lasting positive change in the process. Creation of real change demands a huge united effort from all, where humankind works towards these goals.
Poverty is a cruel fact in today’s world and affects a big part of the world’s population.
Humana People to People in South Africa has devoted itself work with poor communities and families that are facing hardships due to poverty. This has mainly been done through its Child Aid projects with the aim of securing a safe, healthy and enriching environment for children.
In our community projects, our focus is on making sure that children grow up in a protective and caring environment. It involves all aspects of life. How do we care for each other? How do we make sure that they get an education that opens up the opportunities of life? How do we understand and take care of the environment around us and also understand the bigger picture: that we are part of humankind with all our different cultural and ethnical backgrounds?
In Child Aid, we bring people together to take action in their lives. We address all the challenges of development, earning income, living healthy, enhancing skills, improving infrastructure and embracing a diverse and colourful culture.
Humana People to People South Africa believes that everyone deserves the opportunity to live a long, healthy life free from preventable diseases and being able to benefit from crucial health and medical services for prevention and treatment of disease and injury.
We work to make sure that the most vulnerable populations know and understand how to protect themselves from disease and live healthy lives, by combining already existing health practices with the latest scientific discoveries and inventions. We also work to fight stigma and misconceptions due to religious and cultural beliefs.
Since its inception, HPP-SA has been actively involved in raising awareness, offering health services at community level and being the link to health facilities where needed. This we have done in health areas such as HIV and AIDS, TB, Malaria, maternal health, cholera, food and nutrition, hygiene, and healthy living.
Education is a basic human right. According to UNICEF, “Failure to provide quality early childhood education limits children’s futures by denying them opportunities to reach their full potential. It also limits the future of countries, robbing them of the human capital needed to reduce inequalities and promote peaceful prosperous societies.”
In South Africa, there is an increasing awareness of the importance of early childhood education. The number of children under five attending an Early Childhood Development (ECD) centre or pre-school in 2019 has increased to one in three from one in ten since 2002.
Still there is work to be done in order to secure all children their basic right.
HPP-SA together with the Federation Humana People to People has developed the POF - Pre-schools of the Future - program and methodology. The program involves parents and the entire community in the whole pre-school development process, addressing challenges in under privileged pre-schools through provision of comprehensive early childhood development package, including education, health, nutrition and psycho-social support components, as well as developing personnel capacities.
HPP-SA also works together with the Kwazulu-Natal Experimental College in order to train another kind of pre-school teachers with an understanding of the needs of the young children and their communities.
A survey “Towards measuring the extent of food security in South Africa”, published by Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) says:
“Whilst South Africa is food secure at national level, the country is still food insecure at household level as not all households have access to adequate food. Almost 20% of South African households had inadequate or severe inadequate access to food in 2017.”
This situation is further aggravated by the COVID-19 epidemic.
In our community development projects, we work with families to start community and family gardens. We give support to start gardens both in rural and more urban settings.
In their clubs and groups, families receive training in nutrition and in establishing vegetable gardens to secure that they are food secure throughout the year. In rural areas, families often have a small home yard, but often have no tradition of growing their own food. Even in peri-urban areas, you find plots of land which can be used for gardens.
The initiative is carried out in cooperation with local leadership, local government and business, which have supported with access to land and water, and contribution with seeds and equipment.