Food for Education is a Kenya non-profit organisation that uses technology, smart operations, and logistics to deliver low cost, nutritious, meals to public primary school children in Kenya. To date, we have provided over 1,000,000 meals.
Kenya has closed schools in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Beyond school closures, the economic impact of COVID-19 has left children and families we serve every day are left even more vulnerable. Since most of our children’s parents are casual workers, ever tightening family budgets will put our children and their families at grave risk of hunger, malnutrition, and the long-term consequences of undernourishment.
In response, Food for Education would like to do everything possible to ensure the safety and well-being of our children and community. This is why we are launching a three-part response:
1. Caring for our staff who are our lifeline.
We are covering full wages during the crisis; providing protective gear and training in best practices to contain the virus and providing health care subsidies for those in need.
2. Setting up a food bank
We are mobilising funds to create a food bank that will provide food to the school children already enrolled in Food for Education schools, as well as their families — a total of 30,000 people. We will provide a combination of food vouchers and dry food where collection is possible in the event that an ongoing lockdown disrupts their access to food staples.
We will leverage the use of our technology, Tap2Eat, to distribute food to our students efficiently and effectively. Tap2Eat will also be used to redeem vouchers credited to families at identified grocery stores and dry food wholesalers.
Food basket cost per person per week: $2
Number of people: 30,000
3. Increasing our school lunch subsidies
Although there is no announced timeline to reopen schools in Kenya, we know the economic impact of COVID-19 will be felt for months to come. When school resumes, Food for Education plans to increase our meal subsidy for each of the 30,000 students who receive Food for Education lunches each school day. We intend to increase our future meal subsidy and reduce the parent contribution from $0.15 (Ksh.15) to $0.10 (Ksh.10) for the entire 2020 school year.
This will provide relief to parents as they recover from the economic impact and ensure more children have access to nutritious meals once schools resume.
For more information contact:
Wawira Njiru
wawira@food4education.org
www.food4education.org
