School Meals

The Ecole Bethlehem in Port-au-Prince was badly damaged in the quake and the building is inaccessible. But the schoolyard has been declared safe and the kitchen and toilet are still functioning. So it has become one of the focal points of WFP's new school meals programme - open to all kids of school age in the area.

English cricketing stars have taken time out from their tour of Bangladesh for a match of a totally different league, with children from a primary school in Dhaka who receive food assistance from WFP.  The visit was part of the Cricket Against Hunger partnership between WFP and the England and Wales Cricket Board.

The poor village of Kisht , on the Tajikistan-Afghanistan border, has never managed to send a girl to university. Girls tend to be pulled out of school before their final exams. So community leaders are delighted about a new WFP programme which should mean girls stay at school longer. Now, they hope, maybe one will take the next step.

In schools across Bangladesh, WFP is using conjuring tricks to make poor children laugh… and learn about health and nutrition. The new Enter-educate Magic Shows in 100 schools will also dazzle students and their parents with the benefits of school meals.
 

In rural Cambodia, youngsters from poor families are often pulled out of school to work in the fields, as their parents struggle to feed and clothe their children. Now WFP’s targeted programme of school feeding, and take-home rations for the poorest households, is keeping children – especially girls – in school.

HRH Princess Haya Al Hussein, a UN Messenger of Peace, took a turn serving bowls of maize and beans to school children in a Nairobi slum on Friday. For many of the kids, this meal was the only food they would receive throughout the day.

WFP’s first Chinese Ambassador Against Hunger, the legendary gymnast Li Ning, visited Bangladesh recently to meet some of the 400,000 women and children who have received China's help through WFP.

Many kids in northern Cameroon get their main meal of the day thanks to WFP’s school meals program. The program also helps ensure that children get an education – without the meals, their parents wouldn’t send them to school. Rekdai Noel, 19, is only now starting to realise what a difference WFP made to his life…

WFP's SAFE stove project sets out primarily to reduce the amount of time women in two African countries spend looking for firewood and hence to reduce the chance that they will be attacked or raped. At the same time, the project will also offer a concrete way of protecting the environment from desertification.

Kids in the Moroto district of Karamoja were forever getting in trouble for stealing wood from village fences. They did this to feed the fire on which their WFP school meals were cooked. Fuel efficient SAFE stoves mean they don’t have to any more.