Penreach, in collaboration with Paediatric Care Africa (PCA), has responded to the Covid-19 crisis by launching outreaches that will ensure vulnerable groups have food during the lockdown. The Founder of PCA, Dr. Andre Hattingh, said that ‘Penreach has a programme whereby they provide food to children at schools, but due to the lockdown that is not possible, as all schools are closed. The only way to ensure children receive food during these trying times is to distribute food in needy communities. Our philosophy is a simple one: if a child can’t come to the food, the food will go to the child’.

The role of the PCA team in the collaboration is the training of Penreach volunteers on how to distribute to communities. Dr. Hattingh stated that it was very important for all volunteers involved in the Penreach food distribution outreaches to safely hand out food in their respective communities of assignment. He said that volunteers must take extreme care to keep themselves and the persons they are attending to safe by wearing all appropriate personal protective equipment and by following a very stringent disinfecting protocol.

The Partnerships, Fundraising and Communications Manager of Penreach, Ronel Oosthuizen, stated that their outreaches also involved the distribution of Covid-19 awareness booklets in the language of the target communities. Oosthuizen said the booklets are to encourage behavioural change that can stop the spread of the virus. She said, ‘Penreach will continue to support our educators while in lockdown and will offer skills development, coaching and mentoring from platforms such as our online learning platform, WhatsApp groups, radio and communities of practice’.

The partner organisations called on the public to support their outreaches. Interested donors can email partners@penryn.co.za.

Source: Lowvelder

Photo source: Matthias Mueller