Wawira Njiru named 2022 recipient of the Icon Award by the World’s Best 50 Restaurants.
Wawira Njiru, Founder and Executive Director of Food for Education – a Kenyan school feeding social enterprise has been named recipient of the prestigious 2022 Icon Award by The World’s 50 Best Restaurants for her pioneering work in ending classroom hunger, the youngest recipient of the award. The Icon award recognises individuals who have made significant contributions in the food world and are also driving positive change in their communities.
Food for Education has had only one goal – no child should have to go to school hungry. Driven by this, Ms Wawira began by feeding 25 children in a run down kitchen in a local church. Over the years, Food for Education has grown exponentially to now feeding 40,000 children with nutritious meals daily and has cumulatively provided 7,000,000 meals until date.
Through a central kitchen model, Food for Education operates kitchens where meals are prepared and distributed using smart logistics and innovative technology known as Tap2Eat. This technology uses mobile money as a credit facility allowing parents to contribute for the meals which are then distributed to surrounding schools.
William Drew, Director of Content for The World’s 50 Best Restaurants says : “The Icon Award recognises true trailblazers in the food sphere and we are honoured that this year we can present it to Wawira Njiru for her exceptional work. The achievements of Food for Education in just six short years have been astonishing and we know Wawira and her organisation will go on to do incredible things, in Kenya and beyond.”
On receiving the award, Ms Wawira comments – “On behalf of the entire Food for Education team,I am extremely honored and grateful to be this year’s recipient of the Icon Award for the World’s 50 Best Restaurants. School meals have been proven to be essential to improved nutrition amongst children, improved school attendance and school enrolment more-so, on the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic. Everyday we are working to ensure more and more children have access to nutritious meals and we are grateful for this award that recognises the critical work we are doing.”
Watch the video with Wawira here – https://youtu.be/f2JlikaZE78
The award ceremony is set to take place on Monday, 18th July at Old Billingsgate market in the City of London.
About The World’s 50 Best Restaurants.
Since 2002, The World’s 50 Best Restaurants has reflected the diversity of the world’s culinary landscape. The annual list of the world’s most prestigious restaurants provides a snapshot of some of the best destinations for unique culinary experiences, in addition to being a barometer for and a pioneer of global gastronomic trends. The 50 Best family also includes Latin America’s 50 Best Restaurants, Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants, Middle East & North Africa’s 50 Best Restaurants, The World’s 50 Best Bars, Asia’s 50 Best Bars, North America’s 50 Best Bars and the #50BestTalks and 50 Best Explores series, all of which are owned and run by William Reed. 50 Best aims to bring together communities across the hospitality sector to foster collaboration, inclusivity, diversity and discovery and help drive positive change.
