Where We Work

South Africa

INMED has worked in more than 15 sub-Saharan African nations since its inception, and is now in the final stages of completing its registration as a non-governmental agency with the South African Department of Social Development. We have also recently added Nkanyiso, an indigenous South African NGO, to the INMED family. Our Africa-based programs to improve the health, nutrition, education, safety and opportunities of vulnerable children, families include the following:

School and Community Gardening to Improve Child Nutrition

Through school- and community-based activities that engage the participation of students, teachers, family members and volunteers, INMED now reaches more than 120,000 individuals in Orange Farm and Ivory Park, Gauteng province, and in the Mashashane tribal area of Limpopo province through the Healthy Futures South Africa program, which works to:

Reduce hunger among young students by increasing the availability of nutritious produce through school gardens and nutrition education for teachers, school food handlers and families of school-age children.
Improve children’s health and nutritional status by increasing their access to nutritious foods and educating them on good nutrition practices, preventive health, and hygiene and sanitation measures.
Strengthen children’s educational outcomes by reducing hunger, maximizing cognitive potential through improved nutrition, and providing an enhanced school meal that serves as an incentive for regular attendance, including for students who might otherwise have been working inside or outside the home.
Build the foundation for long-term improvements in the quality of life for families in the community by increasing household food security through home vegetable gardening and providing a potential source of income generation through the sale of surplus produce.

Life Skills Education for HIV/AIDS-Affected Youth

Without positive role models to emulate, orphans and vulnerable children often give in to peer pressure and imitate the negative and destructive behaviors they witness daily in their impoverished and violent communities. To help these youth beat the odds against them, INMED and Nkanyiso’s Camp Hope offers week-long holiday camps and follow-up weekend support programs for HIV/AIDS-affected children between the ages of 9 and 20 years.

These camps offer the children with a structured, healthy and safe environment to spend their time during school holidays. The camp curriculum utilizes an integrated approach to dealing with the unique challenges of OVCs by:

Helping build youths’ sense of self-confidence, self-esteem and self-worth
Strengthening youths’ coping mechanisms
Teaching youth about nutrition, life skills, and healthy living as well as measures to prevent substance abuse, crime and HIV/AIDS.
Providing youth with a nurturing environment where they can build new friendships and enjoy fun and fellowship.

Adapting to Climate Change – Protecting Water Resources and Improving Food Security

INMED’s newest South African program focuses on achieving food security and sustainable income generation within the Mashashane tribal group in Limpopo by strengthening local capacity to understand and address climate change, while resolving interrelated issues of environmental degradation, increasing water scarcity and poverty. At the core of this far-reaching goal are aquaponic systems that combine fish farming with intensive soilless vegetable cultivation, conserving both space and water and eliminating the need for chemical fertilizers while producing sufficient food to comprehensively meet household nutritional needs while also providing surplus for sale.

The program also develops alternative improved water sources such as rain catchments and boreholes, which will reduce pressure on dwindling fresh water resources and provide sufficient water for irrigation that will allow the local smallholder farmers to cultivate crops year-round. INMED will also educate members of the local farmers’ cooperative on business practices, connection to market, self-governance, national agricultural policies, leveraging funds for infrastructure development and organizing to influence policies to benefit rural farmers, and will guide the cooperative in the establishment of a commercial aquaponic system to generate income for the tribal group as a whole.

Healthy Futures South Africa Logo

Also featured at:

Monsanto: INMED Nutrition program overcomes environment, culture to improve children’s health in South Africa - Programme supported by the Monsanto Fund

INMED Brings Healthy Futures to Children of South Africa - Monsanto Fund grant to expand nutrition program to all primary schools in Johannesburg township

Learn more about INMED’s school and community gardening programs.

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Contact Us:

INMED South Africa
We are Moving!
Our temporary office is at the following address while our new office is being prepared. Please send written correspondence to our postal box or contact@inmed.org.

Physical Address
Kent Park
1st floor
322 Kent Avenue
Randburg
Johannesburg RSA

Postal Address
P O Box1543
Wilgeheuwel
1736
Johannesburg RSA

Telephone: 011 326 3507
Fax 011 326 4186
Director of South African Programs: Ethel Zulu

INMED Partnerships for Children International Headquarters
20110 Ashbrook Place, Suite 260
Ashburn, Virginia 20147 USA
Telephone: 703 729 4951
Fax: 703 858 7253
Email: contact@inmed.org

Past Projects in Africa

Technical Assistance for Preventive Health and Hygiene and Community Change Programs

INMED’s innovative Healthy Children, Healthy Futures initiative promotes children’s healthy growth and development through a school-based program of treatment for intestinal parasitic infection and nutritional deficiencies; participatory education about good nutrition, preventive health habits, and hygiene and sanitation measures; and community action, empowering children to share the lessons they have learned and take action for better health in their families and communities. To date, the Healthy Children, Healthy Futures program has reached more than 3 million children across Latin America, the Caribbean and Asia—and in Africa, through technical assistance to Cute Crowd in South Africa help program partners implement the program model in Benin and Tanzania.

Providing Essential Medical Supplies

Through the partnership alliances, purchasing power, planning assistance and international network of its medical supply procurement program, INMED assisted dozens of grassroots NGOs and village health clinics in building reliable, sustainable systems of essential pharmaceuticals and medical supplies. INMED’s Medical Supply program delivered fresh-dated medicines that would otherwise be unattainable to impoverished communities and remote health posts, and acquired donations of medicines specifically requested by health coordinators in the field. One of the medical supply program’s greatest accomplishments was completing the first successful cold chain for the transport of vaccines to a network of health clinics in rural Tanzania.

Safe Motherhood Radio Communication Campaign

In Zambia, where more than 70 languages and distinct dialects are spoken, health education, particularly for young mothers, has often been ineffective. Almost all health education materials are written in a language or at a level that could not be understood by the intended audience. Working with the Churches Medical Association of Zambia, INMED targeted “Safe Motherhood” as the focus of a culturally and linguistically appropriate health education campaign.

Kids running in garden INMED introduced the idea of radio broadcasts easily translated and broadcast to remote areas as an effective means of communicating health messages. The simple broadcasts could be used to support and reinforce the visual images of an accompanying flipchart. INMED drafted a guide for radio messages in health education, which was endorsed by the WHO Health Learning Materials Programme, and developed a series of 13 national radio messages. The messages addressed such issues as nutrition during pregnancy, birth spacing, the importance of having a trained attendant at labor and delivery, and recognizing danger signs during pregnancy. INMED also planned the development of a curriculum for training community health workers and “Home Leagues” (neighborhood women’s groups, or lay home visitors) in communicating the health messages to women within their own communities.