HOPE Cape Town & Healthy Nutrition
Through our work in our 17 HOPE communities, we see how important a balanced and healthy nutrition is for a stable and well-functioning immune system on a daily basis. Our community health workers see an increasing number of patients with chronic diseases such as diabetes and hypertension at the clinics, often caused or aggravated by incomplete and unbalanced nutrition. A complete diet rich in nutrients and vitamins is particularly important for HIV positive patients so their immune system can be supported in a natural way. Most patients from poorer communities do, however, lack awareness and education about healthy nutrition.
Since the beginning of March, HOPE Cape Town has been running a new nutrition project in cooperation with the local organization Abalimi Bezekhaya („the planters“ in isiXhosa, http://www.abalimi.org.za). Their programme “Harvest of Hope” (www.harvestofhope.org.za) assists local township farmers with the marketing and sales of their organically produced vegetables. Since the initiation of the cooperation, 20 vegetable bags are delivered to the HOPE community Delft each Tuesday. In cooking demonstrations, we are teaching HIV positive moms how to keep themselves, their babies and their families healthy through a balanced nutrition. The moms take vegetables home each week and exchange recipes and cooking methods in the following session.
Students of human nutrition from the Hochschule Niederrhein, University of Applied Sciences in Moenchengladbach, Germany, regularly assist with their expertise as well as the monitoring and evaluation of the project.
We would like to thank our volunteer Bianca Mannewitz for conceptualizing and successfully initiating the project. Thank you also to Annalena Luedtke and Stephanie Gebauer from the HS Niederrhein for conducting various cooking demonstrations and providing a cooking manual. Finally, we thank Hope & Future e.V. from Muenster, Germany for financing this pilot.