The African Children’s Feeding Scheme (ACFS) was brought into being in 1945, by the illustrious Father Trevor Huddlestone, who sought to replace the hole left by the abolition of the School Feeding Scheme by the government of the day. From Father Huddlestone’s 11 000 meals a day, the ACFS grew until it provided up to 45 000 meals per day to poverty stricken children in the general Gauteng area. After the ANC re-instated the School Feeding Scheme in the early 1990's, the number of children fed dropped to 14 000 per day and now stands at 18 000, which is almost exclusively funded from donor funding and fundraising.

From those small beginnings in 1945, the ACFS grew to 17 Township Committees and 13 Mother’s Clubs. Areas covered are Kagiso in the West Rand, Alexandra, Tembisa, Daveyton, Kwa-Thema, Tsakane and the whole of Soweto. Today, the broader goal of the ACFS is more than simply to feed the poverty stricken, but to educate them as well, through skills development and applications for grants. Targeted groups include AIDS orphans, school dropouts and child-headed families. Learning programme objectives include breaking down the stigma and misunderstanding that surrounds AIDS in the community, creating home based care initiatives, and developing trainers within the community who can deal with AIDS situations.

The secret to proper community support is good peer group communication and this is a cornerstone of the ACFS drive. A recent communication project on HIV/AIDS reached 2.2 million people and showed that perceptions of the disease in the community had been changed by the drive. After the communication drive, an independent survey showed over 85% of the project audience understood that AIDS was not communicated other than through unprotected sex and blood contamination. 10% wanted to know more while only 5% were unconvinced. The African Heritage Foundation nominated the ACFS as one of five organizations that had made a real difference within the community in 2002 and in 2003!