Sustainable school meals

Sustainable School Meals

Sustainable schools meals became a reality when a local community provided daily meals for the children without support from Feeding Futures.  Many school meals programmes in Kenya are heavily dependent on external support. Should this support fail, for whatever reason, school meals cease unless the local community take over responsibility. Measures need to be put in place to make them self-sustainable. Using reliable local food supplies, where possible, enables a community to provide sustainable school meals. The Kenya government has published  the National School Meals and Nutrition Strategy, 2017 – 2022. The work of Feeding Futures builds on the following components of this strategy and modestly aims to contribute by: –

1) Developing and implementing a sustainable school meals and nutrition programme for the Sidai community and others beyond;

2) Increasing awareness and intake of adequate, locally available and nutritious foods among school children and their communities;

3) Improving the enrolment, attendance, retention, completion and learning outcomes of school children with equity – research shows that these factors are strongly related to provision of school meals;

4) Promoting local and inclusive development;

5) Promoting partnerships and multi-sectoral coordination for complementary support and effective implementation of a school meals and nutrition programme; and

6) Strengthening governance and accountability in implementing a sustainable school meals and nutrition programme.

Sustainable schools meals is becoming a reality at Mukinyai and Sidai because of the tremendous support of the head teachers and their communities.