… Kavango East resident starts soup kitchen to feed struggling children
Karolina Conrad (45) knows what it means to rely on a helping hand.
Her children were raised with the support of Orange Babies Namibia Foundation in Windhoek, an organisation helping vulnerable children and women in Namibia get better health, education, and nutrition.
Today, inspired by the assistance she received from the foundation, Conrad has started her own soup kitchen at Mausivi village in the Kavango East region.
The Tutala-Omwene Soup Kitchen, which was started in February 2025, currently has 240 children aged between two and 13 registered to receive free meals twice a week.
“Watching the kids in the community going to school without shoes and thinking back at how Orange Babies supported my children. I decided to start my own,” she says.
The children are served porridge, rice, macaroni, vegetables including cabbage and carrots, and sometimes soup.
She says her experience with Orange Babies showed her the difference initiatives like soup kitchens can make in the lives of vulnerable children.
“My older child is currently at university and is still being supported by the soup kitchen,” she says.
She moved to Mausivi in 2019 when she got married and noticed many children in the community struggling with basic needs.
Some, she says, go to school without shoes, and some go to bed hungry.
“Thinking back at how my children were supported, I decided to start my own and help children in my community,” she says.
Without employment since her retrenchment at Mashare Berries, she buys the food from the little income she makes from selling at a home tuck shop.
Sometimes her husband Hurbet Conrad (47) assists with the little he has.
Her goal, she says, is not only to provide food but also to create employment for young people in her community.
The soup kitchen, however, operates under a tree with wooden chairs arranged for the children to sit on while they eat.
Parents and guardians only provide a child’s full name, theirs and their contact details to register their children for the soup kitchen.
It operates every Wednesday and Saturday.
“Assisting the community is close to my heart,” she says.
Beyond the food, the soup kitchen also serves as a platform to teach children good behaviour, help elderly people in the community and Bible study.
“It makes me sad knowing there are children who go to bed hungry, but because I don’t have funds, I’m assisting where I can,” she says.
Sometimes after school on Wednesday, children grab fat cakes and Oros to take home.
But running the soup kitchen is not easy. Since losing her job, there are times when she does not have any food to give the children. Local green chemes then come in handy to keep the kitchen going.
“We cannot afford to accommodate children of all ages because of a lack of funds and resources,” Conrad says.
The couple has four children of their own.
She envisions establishing a vegetable garden that could supply the soup kitchen while also creating employment for unemployed youth and young women who have dropped out of school.
“There are a lot of school dropouts in the community. Sometimes when young girls fall pregnant, they no longer want to go back to school. So I want to create employment for them,” she says.
Conrad says the soup kitchen could become more sustainable if it had its own garden and a permanent structure.
She is now appealing to good Samaritans, businesses and organisations to help build a proper structure where the children can eat in a safe environment.
“I know what it means to receive help, and that is why assisting the community is close to my heart,” she says.
Mashare constituency councillor Petrus Kashumali says food security remains a concern in the constituency, where many residents rely heavily on rain-fed subsistence farming.
He says when crops fail, local food supply collapses, leaving communities facing acute hunger.
“For orphans and vulnerable children living in households heavily dependent on irregular resources, hunger is a daily reality. In this precarious environment, community interventions like soup kitchens are not just helpful, they are vital for survival,” Kashumali says.
He says while soup kitchens provide critical, life-saving service, securing a safe and weather-protected place to prepare and serve food remains a major challenge for their founders.
“Recognising this urgent need, I have taken a step to formally appeal to good Samaritans to help construct a permanent shelter for the soup kitchen.
“This intervention reveals a clear strategic position, emphasising community partnership and resource mobilisation,” Kashumali says.
