“Sometimes we don’t have any food at home. I am very happy to go to my school because we get food.”
Those are the words of a primary school student in Kilifi County, Kenya, and they carry the full weight of a crisis. Across the region, a prolonged drought has pushed families to eat just once a day. Food is scarce. Water is hard to find. And the effects are showing up in classrooms, in children too tired to concentrate, too hungry to make the long walk to school or too needed at home to stay.
Plan International launched a school feeding program as part of its drought response to keep children connected to their education during one of the hardest periods their communities have ever faced.
Why are children in Kilifi missing school?
The drought gripping coastal Kenya has stretched families to a breaking point. With little or no food at home, children face an impossible daily reality: walking to school in intense heat, sitting through lessons on an empty stomach and then making the same long walk back to find nothing waiting for them.
For many, staying in school was simply not possible.
"Before the school meal program, some students slept in class or lacked the energy to attend school. Others would rather stay at school for lunch than walk home to an empty house with no food."
Alice, primary school teacher, Kilifi County
Hunger and education are deeply connected. When children cannot meet their most basic need, learning becomes almost impossible, and dropping out becomes the only option that makes sense.
What does a school feeding program actually do?
The program provides six schools in Kilifi County with nutritious food packs that are easy to prepare and contain rice, lentils and dried vegetables. Every enrolled student receives at least one meal a day.
The goal is not only to feed children. It is to keep them in school long enough to learn.
For parents, the program has also eased an impossible burden.
"Many households have little or no food. Knowing their children will eat at school gives parents the confidence to leave them in class instead of walking home at lunchtime to find nothing."
Salma, chair of the Parents’ Association
Does school feeding actually get kids back in class?
The results were nearly immediate.
At one primary school, attendance jumped from 350 pupils on the first day of the feeding program to 459 by midweek. More than 100 children who had previously dropped out returned after learning that meals were available.
Children now look forward to Mondays. Teachers report renewed energy and enthusiasm in class. And parents, many of whom are going hungry themselves, have one less impossible choice to make each day.
