Free meals offer route to education for children from poor families

Providing a meal in school is a simple, but concrete way to give children from disadvantaged communities a chance to learn and thrive.

But on empty stomachs, the children become distracted and have problems concentrating on their school work. They become better students when their bodies are well nourished. The incentive of getting a meal also reduces absenteeism, improves performance and decreases drop-out cases.

The story of nine-year-old Miriam Musa showcases just how a mere midday meal helped her take her place among her agemates in a school in Mukuru Kwa Njenga slum in Nairobi. Before, she would watch other children run to school while she stayed behind to care for her younger brothers and sisters.

“Whenever I wake up in the morning, I get ready to go to school, because I know that there will be food to eat,” says Miriam. “I’m happy that I can spend the whole day at school learning and I don’t have to walk the long way home hungry. We are given porride at breaktime and rice, beans, vegetables and fruits for lunch. In my family, we eat rice very few times a year, and only one meal a day, we are lucky, just breakfast and dinner,” she adds.

Miriam’s story is similar to many poor children in most informal settlements who are enrolling and staying in school, enticed by the daily meals they receive.

Sustainable programme

It is for this reason that various players in the education sector have backed the resolve by the National Assembly through a motion on the Development of a School Feeding Policy fronted by Kakamega Woman representative Elsie Muhanda, that the Ministry of Education, through the relevant State Departments, should immediately develop a school feeding policy to cover basic education pupils and sustain them.

The government programme, which will also be supplemented by already existing programmes by other government and non-governmental organisations will see a larger scale of pupils covered across the country.

Since 1980, the World Food Programme (WFP) and the Ministry of Education successfully implemented a school meals programme targeting the most food-insecure districts with the lowest enrolment and completion rates and high gender disparities.

The government programme, which will also be supplemented by already existing programmes by other government and non-governmental organisations will see a larger scale of pupils covered across the country.

In an informal settlement of Reuben Kwa Njenga in Nairobi, at AEF Reuben Primary School located at Mukuru Kwa Reuben slums, a feeding programme is the reason pupils have stayed in their school for longer. The programmme, which is funded by several stakeholders has changed the fortunes of the pupils as well as the parents within that community.

Hungry, unable to learn

The school headteacher Scolastica Opiyo says most pupils depend on the school meals for their survival because they have no food at home. “This is the only meal they get to eat in a day for most of them. Sometimes you find a pupil has come to school all dull and even looking sickly, only to suddenly get better when they are given something to eat and they go back to class ready to learn,” she narrates.

Scolastica explains that the feeding programme keeps the children in school and without it, school dropout rates will rise sharply, because the children will have to find alternative ways to find food, such as scavenging for scrap metals and plastics for sale.

She continues, “Parents have been giving Sh250 per term for food and sponsors, such as Team Pankaj and others donate the rest of the supplies fill the deficit. We also have sponsors, such as Christian Brothers who are paying 21 teachers for us while the government pays 31,” she says.

“Ours is a a public school so we also get funds from the government. It’s not enough, but at least it’s there.”

The headteacher explains that the school hosts more than 3,000 pupils, but increasing enrollments, attributed to the feeding programme has introduced other challenges, such insufficient desks, lockers and even toilets for the pupils to use.

Reduce early pregnancies

“This school has 3,100 pupils. The major challenge is sitting furniture and pupil admissions here are always ongoing. If we find well-wishers that can donate more chairs, desks or to build us more toilets will take us a long way,” she appealed.

In connection to the retainment of pupils in school, the programme has played a vital role in reducing early pregnancies.  Pregnancy incidences are usually reported whenever the children return from the holidays where their freedom to interact with people is not limited.  She says the school is a safer place because being their keeps them away from activities such as helping to fend for their families, which may include trading their bodies for cash. the pupils remains discipline and cases of pregnancies is rarely reported. 

“After returning from the long break occasioned by the Covid-19 pandemic, we had five pregnancies and that tells you the children are safe when they are in school. We also prefer when we are with them here.

“ The short breaks that we have been having within the year has really helped us because we have not registered any pregnancy and our retention rate is very high, but when they go away for a long time they even drop out of school,” she narrates.