Feed School Children in Kenya

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.