The Division of human nutrition and dietetics has had a long history of community engagement and upliftment, and therefore we used this event to reach out to underprivileged communities. We teamed up with the inspirational NGO Food Forward SA. As you may know, they fight hunger by serving meals to over 250 000 people daily through their food recovery efforts. Food Forward SA was established in 2009 to address widespread hunger in South Africa, they connect a world of excess to a world of need by recovering quality edible surplus food from the consumer goods supply chain and distributing it to community organisations that serve the poor. Students on all three campuses did food collection drives in the lead-up to the event. 

The other nominated charities for the event were Abalimi Bezekhaya who combat poverty by growing food sustainably and Ikamva Labantu who creates socio-economic change in Cape Town’s township communities. The UCT Division of nutrition and dietetics have had long relationships with all these organisations and have been supporting them with nutrition education.

The inter-varsity quiz was held at the Sport Science Institute of South Africa and was a huge success. There were stations with different activities which included Nutrition 30 Seconds, puzzles and physical activity-related challenges. Loads of fun was had and each student received “goody bags” and some lucky ones were awarded “spot prizes”.

We are very excited to announce that UCT collected the most food items and the Professional Provident Society (one of our sponsors of the event) will be donating R 6000 to a charity of our choice. With our quiz and food collection drive, we have not only made an impact on the social responsiveness of our students but also on the many people who go hungry daily.