A youth choral group is now the pride and joy of Mqanduli in the Eastern Cape in South Africa. After 3 years of Operation Hunger working with the community in the establishment of various nutrition and poverty alleviation projects, concerned community members raised, at different points, their distresses at how poverty had forced young people to leisurely spend their days on the streets without objective or cause. Case studies have shown how this leads to an increase in crime, drug abuse and teenage pregnancy, which were steadily increasing on a yearly basis. The largest groups of the affected youth was between the ages of 15 to 18 years, school children. Consequently, a number of youths were steadily dropping out of school because of drugs and pregnancy.
Operation Hunger started and is increasingly supporting music competitions and other activities in the community with a focus on keeping the interest of youths in an effort to see crime, drugs and premature sexual encounters reduced. These gospel competitions naturally led to Operation Hunger’s Gospel Group where young people are taught the ways and values of discipline among other key discussion topics aimed at educating youth to at least abstain from harmful and negative activities that might harm or prevent them from reaching maturity not to mentions career paths and future leaders.
