GSK’s initiatives include: Early Childhood Development training courses for kitchen personnel as part of the continued education initiatives. Support with Funeral Catering. Entrepreneurial and Job Skills Development is one of the great initiatives of GSK in developing and empowering people with entrepreneurial/job skills. This is vital for GSK to remain a “Super Kitchen”. Hot Meals during Disaster Relief, in partnership with Rotary, Lions and Eden Disaster management we are spearheading an initiative providing 10000 cooked meals to be available to those in need. The initiative brings about on going and creative community interaction across cultures and socio-economic levels.
What skills and resources were you able to draw from the community for this project?
There are amazing women that are gifted in their cooking skills. They understand the food palates of the children, know what they need and know how to make something work on a small budget. With a little guidance here and there and helping them to apply cost analysis, they are quickly becoming an even stronger force to help break the circle of being stuck in “poverty”, however you choose to define the word. We also rely on donations from partners and civil society.
The challenges
We aim to address affordability of quality meals for children and people who are older.
Addressing the challenges
We value business principles and tender hearts that are driven by what is in the best interest of the individual and community and implement long-term financial self-sustainability models along the way. We apply economies of scale that enable us to do more with less, we steer clear of free handouts and instead reward community contribution. When it comes to entrepreneurial thinking we are all on board.
The achievements
We celebrate cooking and delivering 1,500 hot meals a day. Some days we reach 2,000 as we continue to push towards our goal of 3,500 hot meals a day. The meals that we serve to preschools in shacks are the same as the meals we serve to our clients in private preschools and the same we serve to the “who’s who” when asked to assist with catering. With the recent devastating Knysna fires we were able to step in and fed roughly 1,000 firefighter men and women every day on a couple hours’ notice.
Token Project / Move One Million
Johannesburg, South Africa