How KFC Add Hope turns message of World Hunger Day into action

STORY OF HOPE

- STAFF REPORTER

IN 1994, the year he became South Africa's first democratic president, Nelson Mandela told an interviewer that “freedom is meaningless if people cannot put food in their stomachs”.

Three decades later, on the eve of the 15th annual World Hunger Day on May 28, hunger remains unconquered. The UN Children’s Fund said one in four South African children live in severe food poverty, at risk of life-threatening malnutrition. Two out of three households experience some level of food insecurity and nearly one in five families have run out of food or gone to bed hungry, according to last year’s National Food and Nutrition Security Survey conducted by the Human Sciences Research Council.

“Knowing about the problem is important, but when dozens of children are dying from malnutrition every month, doing something about it saves lives,” said Andra Nel, Head of Corporate Affairs at KFC Africa.

“With the support of its customers’ donations, that’s what KFC Add Hope has been doing for the past 16 years, and it’s rewarding to know that we've changed the lives of more than 1.2 million children in that time.”