Nutrition Programmes

Shap Shap community uplifting programmes provide support in some of the poorest and most underprivileged regions, creating opportunities for those in need to learn and thrive.

Our Community Centres have created a ripple effect, initiating several upliftment projects with a focus on basic education, skills development, and youth development.

Shap Shap NPO Creche and orphanage
Shap Shap Vegan feeding scheme
Shap Shap Vegan feeding scheme
Shap Shap Vegan feeding scheme
Shap Shap Vegan feeding scheme

Plant Power

“One to change a few. A few to change many. Many to change the world. Starts with one.” -Anonymous

Shap Shap is a vegan organisation. We run feeding schemes in the KwaNyuswa and Hammarsdale communities, providing these communities with healthy, delicious meals. We also support several Orphanages and Old Age homes operating within these areas with food packs, as well as the Gogo’s who are a part of our Gogo’s Groups.

WHY VEGAN?

By eliminating meat and dairy from our feeding schemes and nutrition program, we are able to feed more people, promote a healthy diet, help strengthen the immunity of those who are sick, and of course work towards eliminating the pain and suffering of animals.

With Type 2 Diabetes, high blood pressure, obesity, HIV and AIDS being our most prevalent issues, a healthy diet, high in protein and vitamins and low in saturated fat is critical. Along with being more cost-effective, a vegan feeding scheme allows us to provide a diet that is lower in saturated fat, higher in fibre, fruit and vegetables and other protective substances like phytochemicals and antioxidants. As an added bonus, our communities have space available for growing vegetables.

We are hoping to grow this facet of our outreach and expand our capacity to fuel these communities with vegan education programs and meals.

Community Cooking Classes

Shap Shap is planning on running vegan cooking classes for the community which are open to anyone to sign up for. Beneficiaries can attend a weeklong course or sign up for the weekend course that is run over five Saturdays. Each class has between 14 and 18 community members attending. Many of the dishes are cooked in pairs or groups. The course is completely free and covers a range of different styles of cooking, many of which are probably new to most of the people attending the cooking course. The program is designed to show how diverse, healthy and delicious vegan cooking can be, and that despite the cultural suggestion that meat is a necessary part of a traditional Zulu diet, it is completely unnecessary. Participants learn how to shop for dried staples such as pulses, grains, herbs and spices which can full their pantries for a fraction of the cost that purchasing meat, even only one or twice and meat will allow. Not all the meals learn about and included in the recipe book are prepared during the course, however the course facilitator will show cooking show videos that explain the recipes that are not practiced. All ingredients that are used during the course are available to be purchased in the Bean Shed – mini food store.

vegan feeding scheme

The Bean Shed

The Bean Shed is a container store that stocks all the necessary supplies to cook a wholesome and diverse diet. The store sells the products at very low prices to ensure that the community is able to choose these items without it making their shopping more expensive than what they were used to when purchasing meat and dairy. Providing access to ingredients that are not easily accessible in community stores such as soya chunks and mince, barley, millet, oats and plant milk powders, ensures that an opportunity will not arise when someone who is trying to stick to a vegan diet becomes desperate to access products in the community, and cannot find vegan products.

Nutrition education

Nutrition Education

Our vegan education programme is run for the KwaNyuswa community in isiZulu. The education programme is aimed at helping people understand that going vegan will improve their and their families' health and wellbeing, reduce the money they spend on food, create a more varies and delicious diet, whist also saving the lives of many animals. Monthly education programs will be run at the Helen Stott clinic twice a month on Monday’s (busy day) where people visiting the clinic who are waiting in the seating area will watch short films in veganism, listen to talks from our facilitators, be provided written brochures giving information about veganism with simple, healthy recipes in isiZulu to approximately 200-300 people on the benefits of veganism.

Kindness Kitchen & Ubuntu Community Centre

The Kindness Kitchen is already operational in the KwaNyuswa, Bothas Hill and Hammarsdale Communities. To create a bigger permanent venue where the formal cooking classes can be held and larger quantities of food can be prepared, Shap Shap requires some help. We are already working with hundreds of people per month, but with your support we can reach thousands. To run our cooking classes and education programs more effectively and for larger numbers, we require some help building an additional multipurpose room for running our classes and education seminars for the community. Shap Shap already has all the appliances such as gas stoves, hot trays and materials such as baine marie’s, cooking implements, cutlery and crockery needed to run these cooking classes and educational workshops, and so, as soon as the basic building is complete, we can grow the reach and impact that this program has. The bean Shed staples store, which we already have, will be placed next to the Kindness Kitchen to make it easy for people to access the vegan ingredients that they require. The Ubuntu Community Centre is located alongside the main road that runs through KwaNyuswa, ensuring that it is highly accessible for the whole community. To build this communal kitchen and cooking school we require $8000. We have an MOU from Rodger Holmes to build this centre, once we have the funding to purchase the supplies. We also have volunteers on standby ready to help make this dream a reality. The school will have a simple yet functional auditorium, similar to our Hammarsdale Community Cinema, where we will show the video footage including our vegan cooking show, talks by doctors, nutritionists and athletes, and videos such as Cowspiracy, Game Changers, Dominion, Forks Over Knives and Okja (which one of our facilitators will provide translations for). To run the Kindness Kitchen feeding scheme for 1 year, the cost is $6500. This is to cover the cost of all the ingredients required by the cooking classes, outreach meals and food packs. Once complete the kitchen will produce over 10000 vegan meals per month for the most vulnerable community members. Amendment to constitution: Shap Shap is a vegan fully organization. We refer to the term Veganism as described by The Vegan Society: “Veganism is a way of living which seeks to exclude, as far as is possible and practicable, all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose”. All programs run by Shap Shap provide information that supports a vegan philosophy and all programs which originally supported a vegetarian philosophy have been amended or disbanded entirely. Shap Shap’s nutrition program and subsidiary programs such as all feeding schemes only provide food that is vegan.