Feed 200 Children Living in Kibera Slum

Talia is a 5-year-old girl at the Turning Point preschool programme. She joined the programme a few months ago. She appears smaller in size compared to her peers, and she is constantly tired and withdrawn.

Talia is the fourth born in a family of 6 siblings. Their mother, who is raising the children alone, is currently taking care of her youngest child who is 3 weeks old and therefore she cannot go out to look for work. This means that Talia and her siblings often have to go to bed hungry. Talia’s body weight has gone down drastically, and her skin is starting to appear pale. Like Talia, most children in the Kibera slum depend on food offered in school. One or two meals a day are insufficient to nourish their bodies and give them enough energy to concentrate in class.

The Turning Point Feeding Programme has partnered with Shining Hope for Communities (SHOFCO) to monitor the growth of the children who attend the Turning Point education programmes. In the last monitoring exercise, SHOFCO reported that 7 out of 31 children in the preschool were malnourished. Talia was found to be extremely affected. SHOFCO immediately offered some fortified porridge flour to the parents of the affected children to help boost their nutrition.

The Feeding Programme then had to upgrade the diet at the school to include daily fortified porridge instead of tea for breakfast, an extra fruit for lunch and a glass of milk just before the children leave school for home. Moreover, the programme’s team has trained the parents on ways they can boost the nutrition of their children at home without having to spend much.

The SHOFCO team will be visiting the school soon for a follow-up monitoring of the growth of the children, and we are positive that they will see a huge difference in the children’s growth and health.

Turning Point is turning 20 years of serving vulnerable children and their families from Kibera, Kenya!

The feeding programme was the first programme to be started by Turning Point in 2003 with a pot of porridge and 7 children. 20 years later, the programme is offering daily breakfast and lunch to 200 children every year.

The programme has evolved and grown over the years and there is an improvement in the quality of food offered to the children in terms of nutrition and variety. The children at our Kianda preschool and Fountains of Hope School look forward to their daily school meals. Usually, tea and mandazi (a form of local donut) for breakfast. For lunch, they are offered rice with beans or githeri (a mix of boiled maize and beans) or ugali (dense porridge from maize flour) with some vegetables and meat. The children are also offered fruit 2-3 times a week.

"Every day on our way to school, we would pass by the centre to have breakfast. Mama Judy was always ready with tea and mandazi (doughnut). We felt special and loved" Recalls Bonnie our alumni who is now a Sales Coordinator at a company in Nairobi.

The programme also offers food to over 152 households during long school holidays to ensure the children are fed as most of them depend on school meals.

Monitoring the growth of the children is central to the programme to check how the programme is contributing to the health and wellbeing of the children. The growth monitoring activity also helps catch any health issues in the children for early intervention.

Lastly, we carry out deworming treatment on the children every term. The treatmentcontributes to significant weight gains and allows more energy to be focused on child growth and development.

There is no doubt that in the last 20 years, the programme has significantly contributed to the learning outcomes as well as the health and nutrition of hundreds of children that Turning Point has returned to school.

Every child deserves an opportunity to access basic needs, among them is food. While this is the case, most children in Kibera Informal Settlement still survive on one meal a day or even go for a day or two without food. This has a ripple effect on children’s retention in school. As a remedy, The Turning Point Trust has been working to ensure that every child in our feeding program gets access to a hot breakfast and balanced diet lunch.

Out of these efforts, school records indicate that children are in school on regular basis, which is a great motivation. The goal is to see to it that the poverty cycle is mitigated among slum dwellers. Education has been a great contributor to this endeavour.

One of our beneficiaries Celine comes from a family of five. They live in a one-roomed coagulated iron sheet house, under the care of a single mother. The mother relies on doing laundry chores and freelancing in different salons. This has been an unreliable venture. As a result, she has been unable to meet the needs of her children. Through the feeding program, Celine has been able to report to school daily. She is now in class 8 awaiting to do her Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE). She represents over 200 children who benefit from this program. 

Currently, Turning Point is in the process of taking up 20 more children into the program. The success of this noble cause has been through your generous support and prayers.

Starting tomorrow, schools across Kenya will be opening their doors to children returning after a short break.

For many children, this means getting at least one nutritious meal from their school. 200 children attending the Turning Point education programmes are no exception. They look forward to the daily nutritious warm breakfast and lunch offered at the school. For most of these children, school is the only place they are sure they will receive a meal.

This 2^nd term, Turning Point plans to offer a total of 13600 meals to 200 children. We also plan to partner with local health clinics and practioners to train our staff on child growth monitoring. The staff will also be given training on food safety and hygiene that include learning about food storage, handling of fresh produce, safe food preparations practices, and basic good hygiene and sanitation.

Thank you for contributing to the feeding programme, the school retention rate and most of all, easing the burden on many poorer families.