Mbekweni Community Development Centre [Paarl]

A poor, rural community on the outskirts of the Paarl wine farming area, Mbekweni is a place of wide spread unemployment, apart from during the grape picking season. Poverty and malnutrition are rife and there is a high incidence of HIV and AIDS, made worse by the lack of adequate nutrition.

The Community Development Centre assists those affected by or infected with HIV and AIDS through the provision of food – a vegetable garden provides a sustainable source of healthy food, food parcels are distributed to those most in need, and there is a soup kitchen that ensures hungry children receive at least one nutritious meal a day.

Volunteer carers have been trained to support those on anti-retrovirals, and to raise awareness of HIV/AIDS. Another effective AIDS awareness programme has trained 24 school children to act as Peer Group Educators in schools.