Since the lockdown in March 2020, SAFMH and the seventeen Mental Health Societies in the provinces provided much needed remote mental health services to support mental health care users, their families and others in addition to providing food parcels to destitute families. It is important to note that there is no health without mental health and that families need support and care during these difficult times.
Mental health service users and their families are in dire need of humanitarian aid. They are caught in a poverty-disability trap and face hunger as an extreme result of unemployment or underemployment made considerably worse by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and extended lockdown.
Food parcels are delivered to the homes of our beneficiaries, sparing them the indignity of having to queue for food in public places, lessening the risk of contracting COVID-19, and offering them hope and a sense of community. Each food hamper is filled with nutritious food and costs R400.00 to feed a family of 6 individuals living in historically disadvantaged communities.
The food parcels bring real and immediate relief to hungry families, improving the nutrition and physical well-being of vulnerable children, youth, adults and elderly persons who benefit from our food parcels, and boosting their resilience and immunity to disease.
"Hunger has no place in the 21st century. And yet, acute hunger has risen almost 70% in four years. Life-saving humanitarian work and support to livelihoods must continue, no matter what challenges COVID-19 throws at us." (From the statement by David Beasley, Executive Director, World Food Programme (WFP), release of the Global Report on Food Crises and COVID-19 implications in the hungriest countries)
