School Meals
School meals are basic need
So many of the young people suffer from stunted growth caused by a poor diet.
There is a poor understanding of nutrition in the communities we work with and we try to tackle that through our farming and edible garden programmes.
We also discuss with the community the importance of a lunch time meal for students at the school. If children have to go home for a meal, they may never return, if they live a long way away there may not be time, so they don’t go home, or if they do and do return they may be late (and punished for it) or exhausted. Teachers often say that students sleep in the afternoon classes because they lack energy.
A meal at school keeps students in school, allows them to enjoy the lunch break, provides them with the energy to participate in learning in the afternoon lessons and most importantly it helps with their physical and cranial development.
WE DO NOT CONTRIBUTE TO THE SCHOOL MEAL PROGRAMME BECAUSE WE BELIEVE THAT THE MEAL PROGRAMME NEEDS TO BE SUSTAINABLE.
When we discuss school meals with the community we discuss the challenges faced by the poorest members of the community and the challenges that they face in providing the food and funds for their child/children, and we talk about the benefits that education provides to the whole community and we talk about Ubuntu, the philosophy that asks how can i be happy when my neighbour is not. We leave the community to discuss how they are going to manage and implement the school meals programme so that no child is left hungry.
