Food shipment to help school feeding programme

WFP on Monday welcomed the arrival in Mombasa port of a 54,000 mt shipment of maize, valued at US $24 million, as part of a substantial donation by the US government towards the agency’s post-drought expanded school feeding programme in Kenya. “This food is not only a meal, but a passport to an education, a future, hopes and dreams,” said Esther Ouma, a programme analyst for WFP Kenya. “Giving a nutritious meal to a poor student today is key to helping him or her become a literate, self-reliant adult tomorrow,” she added.

WFP has run a school feeding programme in Kenya for 20 years, but expanded it as a result of this year’s drought to feed over one million children in 3,612 schools. This latest US donation will allow WFP to reach 16 districts with lunchtime meals for some 1.3 million children in 4,700 schools, beginning at the start of the third school term in September, the WFP spokeswoman, Lindsey Davies, said on Tuesday.

“School feeding is only the first step towards a quality education,” said Ron Senykoff, Director of the Office of Food for Peace at USAID, eastern and southern Africa. “For it to be really effective, it is critical that feeding at school is balanced with other inputs, such as health and nutrition, teacher training and community involvement.”