How land, jobs and water decide which children starve

Friday, April 24, 2026 | 150 Views |

Under the radar: The San community continues to bear the brunt of poverty and lack in the country

In the Boteti region, the fight against child malnutrition has a face and it is overwhelmingly the San. Behind the statistics of a UNICEF, Japan & Red Cross programme is a family of 22 living in one yard and children whose only shot at growth comes from a feeding scheme. NNASARETHA KGAMANYANE writes

This is the story of why acute malnutrition keeps finding the San community first and what it will take to break the cycle.

In most of the affected families, the building structures are made of mud and tree branches, thatched with grass. The rooms have no beds and more than ten people sleep in them. Most of those yards have two or less rooms. Outside on of them, a nine-month-old baby who had just graduated from a malnutrition treatment programme sat on his mother’s lap.

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