Creating reliable, self-sustaining systems to feed children and lift communities.
Around the world, millions of people live in multidimensional poverty and face chronic food insecurity, hunger, and malnutrition. These are the places Ubuntu Mundo seeks out. We target areas where a majority of the population lives at or below the poverty line, and we focus on the most vulnerable community members -- the children.
We strive to create sustainable solutions that create real value for the communities we serve.
We provide an essential service, and ensure that our program is reliable and sustainable, strategically growing at a pace supported by our gardens, commercial farm, and financial resources.
Key to our mission is that our programs become self-sustaining over time.
- We feed children every day.
- We operate organic gardens to supply fresh produce for the meals we serve.
- We operate kitchens that prepare the hot, nutritious meals we offer.
- We have created a social enterprise that operates a commercial farm, generating revenue for the project.
We start with food, improving the lives of children, and create sustainable operations and jobs, empowering and lifting entire communities.
Feeding Children
Tragically, in too many parts of the world, children do not have reliable access to the most basic human rights, including regular access to nutritious food. In South Africa, the government provides children with one meal at school, and for many of these children that is their only meal of the day.
Enter Ubuntu Mundo. We step in with one simple but impactful action — providing food insecure children a nutritious hot meal daily. Each meal includes homegrown vegetables picked from Ubuntu Mundo's local gardens as well as a protein, a carbohydrate and, once a week, a piece of fresh fruit. We operate 5 days a week, even during school breaks and holidays.
The day begins early on the Ubuntu land, with workers arriving to water and cultivate the garden and the greenhouses, followed by the cooks to prepare that day’s hot meal. Children, ages 4 to 14, arrive at 2pm to pick up their meal and socialize before heading home. Meals are served in take home containers. Older children participating in the after school program stay for an additional hour of arts instruction.
Better nutrition leads to improved health and better outcomes -- increased school attendance and performance -- yielding greater opportunities for the future.
Empowering Communities -- A Social Enterprise that provides jobs and supports all our programming
Lasting change can only be realized when it comes from within, so the local community is the heartbeat of the program, and Ubuntu Mundo plays a supporting role — we mobilize the community, help them find solutions that make sense for them, fund the projects that are created and share their stories and accomplishments.
Ubuntu Mundo works in distressed communities with high unemployment and other structural and economic hurdles that prevent local families and community members from thriving. See Our Projects to read about regional statistics facing the communities we serve.
Ubuntu Mundo creates jobs in a region where people face severe social and economic challenges.
Ubuntu Mundo addresses immediate needs by feeding children. To achieve this in a sustainable way, it builds kitchens, establishes local gardens, and has built a social enterprise intended to generate revenue to support the feeding program. This social enterprise -- a commercial farm -- creates jobs and provides long-term support for our feeding programs. Ubuntu Mundo helps struggling communities create an economic engine to power the health and opportunity for all community members.
In addition, Ubuntu Mundo builds partnerships with other NGOs with similar missions and vision, and with local healthcare facilities or clinics.
Enriching Education
As vital as a daily meal is, Ubuntu Mundo is not just about food. We offer the children after school programs in the arts, teaching skills and creating space for the children to express themselves, find their voices, and share their joy. Individual talent, great beauty and enormous creativity already live within all children. Ubuntu Mundo supports the children in our programs, with nutritious food and arts education, that unlock their individual strengths and lets them shine.
We offer after-school classes to small groups of children periodically throughout the year. This is a small, but growing part of our mission.