The Garden Route Children’s Trust, or GRCT for short, is a UK based charity which was founded in 2006 with the aim of alleviating poverty amongst children in South Africa through the provision of food and education.
Our founder, Penny Fleming, was born and grew up in South Africa. Following her move to the UK, she continued to be concerned for those in South Africa who have so little. During this time, Penny’s close friend Shelley Godsell started working with informal schools in the townships surrounding Knysna.
Many of the communities in which these schools are situated have high unemployment and HIV infection rates, with many orphans and child led families.
Starting with just one school, Shelley began to provide a nourishing e’Pap meal for the children and arrange funding for the training of teachers. Penny started fundraising for this cause and the GRCT was born.
The principal beneficiary of the GRCT is still Shelley’s e’Pap Children’s Feeding Project, which now funds an e’Pap meal for over 5,000 children. Approximately 90 volunteers give their services freely to help with the distribution of the porridge and liaising with the schools. As a result, almost all the money (around 99%) raised by the GRCT goes directly to the point of need.
The GRCT now also funds feeding projects in Port Elizabeth, Hout Bay and Vryburg, projects reliably run by committed partners and volunteers in these areas.
It is a sobering thought that just £20 buys a nutritious e’Pap breakfast for a child for an entire school year. With your generous help, we hope to feed even more hungry children going forward!
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The nutritional benefits of e’Pap –
why we choose to fund e’Pap in particular
e’Pap is made from wholegrain maize and soya beans. Vitamins are added into the mixture in a form that the body can easily absorb. e’Pap contains 24 micronutrients and four macronutrients which maximise absorption and “bio-efficacy” in the human body. This means that e’Pap will be absorbed into the body more effectively.
e’Pap addresses the issue of “hidden hunger” and micronutrient deficiencies, which can compromise the immune system and interfere with focus and concentration at school.
Preparing e’Pap is straightforward – it just needs to be mixed with clean water. This is an invaluable feature in the areas in which the feeding projects are based, as it can therefore be prepared in even the most basic of settings.
Trustees
We have nine trustees who are diverse (in age and gender) and who have a broad range of skills and experience (including finance, marketing, education, IT, law and management). All of them have specific roles. In short, we take governance very seriously, even though the GRCT is a small charity.
