Education Kenya Project #18273

Feed School Children in Kenya

by African Promise

Project Report | Jun 6, 2016
Breakfast club to be launched

By Charles Coldman | Director

Children being served lunch

We have two exciting developments to bring you news of in our latest quarterly report: the expansion of the lunch programme and the launch of a breakfast club.

Growth of lunch programme

From September we will extend our lunch programme to our new seventh partner school, Ngambenyi Primary, where we are close to completing a year-long redevelopment of the school. This is the smallest of our partner schools by enrolment with less than 130 pupils across pre-primary and primary classes so it will not significantly increase the scope and cost of the programme (which currently reaches 2,400 children).

Launch of breakfast club

For some children in our partner schools the only full meal they eat each day is the lunch we provide. This means that they come to school in the mornings having not eaten since lunch the day before. At the request of the school we will launch a breakfast club at one of our partner schools, Kiteghe Primary, next month. This will provide targeted relief to children who have been identified as being from extremely disadvantaged and impoverished backgrounds. At Kiteghe this amounts to 32 pupils from the total school roll of 192. In addition to lunch we will provide these children with an early morning mug of sweetened porridge (containing maize, finger millet and sorghum). This will cost less than £0.80 ($1.20) per child per month.

Impact

We continue to receive reports from head teachers about the positive impact of the feeding programme on pupil health and performance.

"The feeding programme has enabled children to get a meal for lunch, which was not possible before. This has enabled them to learn effectively and enjoy schooling. The children now look healthy and happy, and performance is improving steadily, especially in the lower classes."

Nicholus Mutui, head teacher, Kisimenyi Primary School

Attendance rates are now at 95% and above across our partner schools, which means that more children are in school for more of the day.

Funding

Although the programme is fully-funded until the end of 2016 we are already seeking funding for 2017 and beyond. Can you help us secure the long-term future of this vital programme by continuing your support ? It costs just £17 ($25) to provide a daily lunch to one pupil for the year, that's equivalent to the cost of a few of your morning lattes or a cheap meal out!

Bags of porridge mix for the breakfast club

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Mar 10, 2016
Programme enters its third year

By Charles Coldman | Director

Pupils from Kiteghe Primary School

Our school lunch programme has now entered its third year, the first in which all 2,400 pupils across our network of partner schools will receive a daily meal throughout the year.

Changes for 2016

This year we have made an important change to how we deliver the programme by supplying food on a monthly rather than termly basis. This reduces the amount of food kept on-site at any one time and minimises the risk of food wastage caused by natural degrading of food (which, previously, was kept in store for up to 3 months before being used).

The future

We are very pleased to have already secured the funding that we require to deliver the programme through to the end of this year, largely thanks to some significant donations we have received from our foundation and corporate supporters in the UK. We have already begun raising funds for 2017 and have secured approximately half of the £45,000 ($64,000) that we have budgeted for delivery of the programme at its current level.

We are also in discussions with our partner schools about starting a breakfast club for the most disadvantaged pupils for whom the school lunch is very often the only meal they take every day. These children struggle in morning lessons having not eaten since lunch the day before.

The thoughts of a pupil

We recently spoke to Cecilia, a class 7 pupil and the student President at Kiteghe Primary School, and she had the following to say about how the programme has changed her life and that of her fellow pupils.

"When we didn’t have lunch at school many children were going home far away. I live quite a distance from school so going home and back made me tired. Other pupils couldn’t get back to school easily. There were less children here for lessons [in the afternoon].

Parents couldn’t afford to bring maize and beans as many parents here don’t have very good quality of work. It has really helped having lunch at school. The lunch now really helps the parents and the children. We take our lunch in one hour. If you finish early you can revise. It gives us more time to study and the lower classes can play.

I would feel bad if we didn’t have the lunch. We’d have to go back [to how it was before]. Since the lunch came we have performed very well. It helps the children. They all get to eat the same, so they can learn more. Some children were going home to no one and no food."

Cecilia, Student President, Kiteghe Primary

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Dec 30, 2015
End-of-year report

By Charles Coldman | Director

With schools in Kenya now having closed for the Christmas holidays, we have come to the end of the second full year of delivery of our school meal programme.

During the year we passed the half a million meal milestone however the year was not without its challenges, in particular the disruption caused by a nationwide teacher’s strike in September. This strike was called by the teaching union on the day that the final term was due to start, after we had already supplied our partner schools with all the food required for the three months ahead. The strike eventually lasted 4 weeks and so our partner schools were forced to take measures to ensure that food that we had supplied for this period was not wasted: some continued the programme through the strike to ensure that children were still being fed even if they were not learning, others extended term beyond the official close to make up for lost learning time and use up the food, whilst others took steps to preserve the food for use in 2016.

Next year will be the first school year in which all 2,400 children across our partner schools are provided with a daily lunch from the start of the year. Going forward, in part because of lessons learnt but also as a result of on-going discussions with head teachers, we have decided that we will supply food on a monthly rather than termly basis. This will help minimise the risk of food wastage caused either by school closures or by natural degradation. We feel that the extra administration that this decision will incur and the potential for increased costs (as we will be more regularly impacted by any food price rises) is outweighed by the benefits.

We are very satisfied with the impact of the programme and have no doubts about continuing our support of it. We are making efforts to assess its impact in quantifiable terms but the anecdotal evidence we already receive from head teachers is extremely encouraging. Their latest batch of reports highlighted the following benefits of the programme:

Observable improvements to pupil health and nutrition
No absenteeism after lunch (children would previously be sent home at lunchtime and some would not return)
Allowance for better time management and time saving during lunch breaks
Increasing and stabilised attendance levels
Improvements in academic performance
Increased contact time with teachers and books

The full cost of delivering the programme in 2016 is budgeted at about £39,700 ($58,900), which works out at just under £17 ($25) per pupil for the year or just 8 pence (12 cents) per meal. We would be grateful for any donations you can give - these will help us secure the future of the programme for 2016 and beyond, and also to improve the quality of meals we provide by adding vegetables on an occasional basis.

We look forward to your continued support.

With best wishes from all at African Promise for a very happy, healthy and prosperous New Year.

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