Fort Hare DA SRC pledges initial R300k to subsidize student meal allowances 

24 May 2015

The DA governed Fort Hare SRC has pledged R300,000.00 to provide meal allowances to NSFAS students who are currently going hungry.

The fight for decent meals for NSFAS students is far from over, but the DA SRC has pledged these funds as an interim measure until the University comes to the table with improved allowances. 

This follows the DA Student Organisation handing a petition to University management calling for decent meal allowances, after a mass campus march held on 29 April 2015.

Fort Hare's R13.00 per day total meal funding is an unacceptable relegation to hunger and malnutrition. 

On Friday, students of Fort Hare were forced to take their food allowance grievances to the University's Centenary Celebration launch at the Alice Campus. Students stood up in their numbers to prevent the celebrations from taking place.

This forced the Vice Chancellor and his top management to finally engage the SRC on these issues.

Through DA SRC pressure in that meeting, the Vice Chancellor committed to allocating further funding to meal allowances, and will revert to the SRC on 27 June 2015 to confirm the amounts.

The SRC's commitment of  R300,000.00 will be made available immediately, with vouchers being handed out this week. I have called on all campuses of Fort Hare to work together on this.

While SRC self-funding meal vouchers may not be a permanent solution, we expect the Vice Chancellor to come back to the table on 27 June with a vastly improved meal allowance. 

Anything other than that will display gross bad faith on the part of University Management.

The DA SRC commitment is to truly put students first, and that begins with using our own budgets to rather benefit students, than to benefit the SRC.

Statement issued by Busisiwe Mashiqa, Fort Hare SRC President, May 24 2015