On one day, a team from one company managed to pack over 9000 meals to support Early Childhood Development… enough to feed an entire centre for a complete year!
On 13 July the senior leadership team of African Bank packed meals for Early Childhood Development (ECD) centres.
Early Childhood Development is the all-round development of our children to help them to further develop into childhood and adulthood. The development of babies, toddlers and young children form the foundation for all further development that a child undergoes. Childcare services (day-care, pre-school, etc.) represent much more than a drop-off location for working parents, they play a very important part in the development of children. They give children an opportunity to engage in a variety of educational and social activities.During early childhood rapid development (physical, cognitive and emotional) takes place, this development is crucial in readying children for school.
Children who are ready for school will be friendly, confident, and social; they will have good peer relationships, language skills and they will communicate well. School-ready children will be less likely to fail a grade and will perform better overall.
The packing took place at the Sandton Convention Centre and is part of the Rise Against Hunger campaign.
Rise Against Hunger is an international hunger relief organization that distributes food and life-changing aid to the world’s most vulnerable, mobilizing the necessary resources to end hunger by 2030.
“In our 67 minutes to honour Mandela we packed 9720 meals which is enough to feed one ECD centre for a complete year,” says Kennedy Dembetembe, National CSI Manager for African Bank. This, he says, is an effort to improve the lives of children and educators around the country.
“ECD is possibly the biggest blindspot in our education crisis. We recognise that there is no point in putting money into education when the foundation isn’t there. We have therefore committed to invest in this area so that other interventions don’t have to be remedial, but rather progressive. It is encouraging that our African Bank leaders are leading by example and are demonstrating our brand purpose ‘humanity through banking’,” he concludes.
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