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A hungry child can’t learn…
We found many of the students in the Ziway Lifesong School were coming to school hungry and
brought no food for lunch. Teachers complained of lack of attention on the students’ part. Lifesong
initiated a school feeding program in November, 2009, for all 300 students at the school.
For breakfast each receives fafa, a porridge-like food that provides the nutrients that each growing child
needs. The lunch menu rotates through a cycle of fish soup, the national foods of shiro and injera,
vegetable beef soup, and pasta.
Now that the Adami Tulu Nursery School has re-opened, Lifesong has also started a similar
breakfast and lunch feeding program there.
The Ziway school feeding program, in which 300 children are fed two meals each day, has been
very successful. Caregivers, teachers, and the students themselves report that they are much healthier,
more attentive in class, and have more muscle and skin tone.
Sustaining the program of feeding each student a nutritious breakfast and lunch at the Adami Tulu
School will take additional funding and special logistics. However, if it is God’s will, we know
that He will provide what is necessary for the feeding program. On the first day of the
feeding program, all students were measured for their height and weight and this data was recorded.
Several children were found to be malnourished. Now that we have this statistical data, we intend to
monitor the students’ progress.
In Ethiopia, $3 feeds 1 child for a month!
