Sort by
Sort by

Nestlé South Africa rewards female excellence in agriculture

Back to Press releases

Nestlé will on 19 October 2015 host the 22nd edition of the Nestlé Community Nutrition awards. The event will be held at the Thaba Eco Lodge, in Klipriviersburg, south of Johannesburg.

This year, North West Province MEC for Rural, Environment and Agricultural Development, Honourable Manketse Tlhape will hand over the awards to 43 winning projects selected from all nine provinces.

Since 1993, Nestlé in partnership with provincial departments of agriculture has been at the forefront of recognising the role which women across the country play in ensuring food security through the establishment of community based subsistence agricultural projects. These projects help to reduce poverty and hunger within indigent communities and create much needed employment opportunities for both women and youth alike.

In recent years the Nestlé Community Nutrition Programme introduced a Schools’ Nutrition Programme category aimed at encouraging schools, especially “No-Fee-Schools” located in rural and peri-urban areas, to grow their own vegetables in order to supplement the food provided by the Department of Basic Education’s Schools’ Nutrition Programme.

The Nestlé Community Nutrition Programme is one of Nestlé’s flagship programmes under the auspices of our Creating Shared Value philosophy. Creating Shared Value states that for a company to be sustainable in the long term, it needs to create value for its stakeholders and communities where it operates.

Hanna Job of Kedirileng Vegetable Project from the North West Province, which won the overall prize in the Community Category in 2014, says: “Our prize money has helped us to expand the project and our achievement has encouraged more women from our village to establish their own gardens. We are more determined to work now and are currently trying to find a market for our produce.”

Nestlé South Africa spokesperson and Group Corporate Affairs Executive, Motshidisi Mokwena, says Nestlé has prioritized the areas of nutrition, water and rural development to create shared value in all communities where Nestlé operates and that the Community Nutrition Programme resonates completely with the company’s Creating Shared Value philosophy.

“We would really like to urge more women from all over the country to take part in sustainable agricultural activities which promote a very strong culture of self-reliance and are pivotal in effecting overall positive change within their communities,” she adds.

For more information, please contact: Motshidisi Mokwena
Spokesperson: Nestlé South Africa
0824688752 or 0115146312
Email: [email protected]