Athi River GK Prisons primary school in Kitengela, Kajiado County has registered improved learners’ enrolment due to the ongoing feeding program, deputy head teacher Nancy Ledama has said.
Ledama said the school has since the project’s takeoff in October 2023 registered an improved enrolment to the current 2, 000 learners, up from 1,500.
Parents contribute Sh10 a day to the school feeding programme while Cup of Uji, a not-for-profit organisation, pays Sh20 a day. Each child is served hot and nutritious food for Sh30 daily.
Ledama also noted improved performance in the learners' academic and co-curriculum activities, attributing it to the program. The five–year pilot project at the school is being implemented by the Cup of Uji organisation with funding from the Rockefeller Foundation.
“We have achieved a positive index towards the enrolment in our school since we got this programme. We were as low as 1,500 learners, we are now 2, 000 in enrolment,” Ledama told reporters at the school on Thursday.
“Learners’ health has also improved as opposed to what it was earlier before the programme was introduced to this school. The majority couldn’t participate in the co-curriculum activities; they didn’t have much energy."
"But now, we have gone up to regional competitions in sports. Academic performance has equally improved,” Ledama said.
Ledama said according to the CBC of awarding, the majority of the learners were previously below expectations, but currently at least 80–90 per cent are meeting expectations.
She said children were given enough food, with some carrying remains to their siblings and parents at home.
Children who spoke to the Star said they were healthier, brighter, and more energetic since they started eating from school.
“I thank the organisations for considering us in the feeding program. My mother couldn’t afford food at home; we spent nights without food several times,” a grade six girl said.
She said at times she carries food from school in the evening while returning so that her siblings can have a bite.
“I at times only eat at school since there is nothing at home, my single mother is struggling to raise my two siblings and self,” she said.
A 10-year-old boy said he used to fall sick lots of times before the programme was introduced. But, he is now alright.
Cup of Uji founder Francis Amonde said that through their focus as an organisation on school feeding, they had many other programs running at the school.
“We support over 17, 000 learners in 20 schools across six counties in the country,” Amonde said.
The counties include Laikipia, Kajiado, West Pokot, Kilifi, Homa Bay and Nairobi.
“For Athi River GK Prisons primary school, we do a subsidised lunch programme where parents pay Sh10 and then we have support from The Rockefeller Foundation that pays Sh20 for the lunch that we give learners,” he added.
Amonde said they had done a nutritional assessment of the learners’ health through their monitoring and evaluation team and proved that the program was improving their lives health-wise.
He said they were committed to fighting hunger as well as driving education of children from less privileged backgrounds across the country.
The Rockefeller Foundation Food manager Kagwiria Koome said the program was important since 60 per cent of school-going children in Kenya are malnourished.
Koome said school feeding is one of the ways to capture a large number of the population.
“So, in this school, we can provide nutritious meals. Not only a meal but also very diverse with the intent of impacting on the children’s dietary patterns from early ages,” she said.
She said financing for school meals was a challenge since governments have many competing priorities.
“One of the things we have noticed is that the physical space is constrained. In Kenya, we are only feeding 20 per cent of our children through school feeding programnes. So, what we do with them is that we work with them to create a plan of how to exactly achieve universal school coverage,” Koome said.
Koome said as a Foundation, they at the global level work with governments to ensure they make commitments towards school meals.
She said they had a ‘tap to pay’ system so that from their end, they know how much money has been collected.
“We also have a system at the back end that shows how much was the cost of a meal and how many children ate. This helps in improving transparency and accountability,” Koome said.
“Cup of Uji is the one that provides the meals. We only procure foods that are grown locally. They include rice, beans and maize promoting the principles that are important to us. The meals are environmentally friendly, we aren’t destroying the environment to feed our children,” Koome said.
