Our Story...
WARMTH (WAR against Malnutrition, Tuberculosis and Hunger) provides low-cost food to the poorest communities around Cape Town through a network of 43 community-based kitchens. From these kitchens over 4,300 low-cost meals a day are sold to those in need.
WARMTH also founded a further 10 kitchens along the West Coast, which are now run in partnership with the Department of Social Services and Poverty Alleviation.
WARMTH was started in 1968 as a soup kitchen, but is now under the umbrella of Catholic Welfare and Development as a not-for-profit organisation and is seen as a model development project of its kind.
You may wonder how such qualities can be achieved - by the enthusiasm of our kitchen operators!
Each kitchen is run as a small business by a woman chosen by the community themselves. She receives training by WARMTH on nutrition, cooking and basic business skills. The kitchen operators are not paid wages but make their money from the profits of the meals they sell. The more meals the operator sells the more money she earns. This helps give an incentive to the operator and helps WARMTH achieve its aim of feeding as many people as possible. Most operators even employ their own helpers. The project creates jobs and encourages people to take responsibility for their own lives.
It is often said that children are the worst victims of poverty, which is why 15 WARMTH kitchens are based in primary schools, making low-cost nutritious meals available to the most vulnerable.
WARMTH doesn’t operate as a hand-out feeding scheme, but rather enables people to buy nutritious “take-away” meals at minimal cost (soya bean stew and rice 6p and vegetable soup 2p). Where people cannot afford even these prices, WARMTH works with other agencies and coupons are issued to enable them to eat.
