Back in June 2020, Patrick Odongo, founder and director of the Seed Foundation which operates the Seed School in the heart of the massive slum of Kibera on the outskirts of Nairobi, Kenya, reported that beginning in January of that year that thanks to the supporters of Bread and Water for Africa® we were able to provide two meals each school day to 126 students there.
The school, said Patrick, “strives at transforming the lives of these children by offering them hope through education and feed them regular meals while they are in school.”
And with the grant funding he noted that “This came in very handy to support our feeding program for the children whose parents can barely manage to provide meals for their children.”
Patrick explained that direct beneficiaries of the feeding program at the school are the students aged 3-14 years old who are selected to attend the school saying, that during the admission process, “we conduct screenings within the community to select the children in the most dire need.
“The Seed School aims to offer quality education to the most disadvantaged children here in Kibera.”
Among those students who have been benefiting from the meals program for the past four years is Felix Juma Otieno whose parents are both unemployed and depend on odd jobs and casual labor to raise their family which includes Felix and his seven siblings.
“Felix has consistently improved on his school performance, and we are very optimistic of even greater performance into the future,” said Patrick earlier this year.
Today, as the school enrollment continues to increase, the feeding program has grown to serving roughly 200 students a combined 400 meals each school day to the hungry children who would most likely be remaining hungry, even malnourished, on a day-by-day basis without it.
“The health of the children has constantly improved,” says Patrick, who notes that the grant funding provides the school with a reliable source of income allowing him to purchase food staple items such as maize flour (corn flower to prepare the Kenyan staple “ugali”), maize, beans, rice, potatoes, green onions, tomatoes “among other food items including green vegetables and fruits depending on the season.”
And from Patrick this Thanksgiving:
“We thank the supporters of Bread and Water for Africa® for supporting our feeding program for the entire term. This enabled us to improve the lives of the children and increase their concentration in classes.
“More specifically, we would like to send our greatest appreciation to Bread and Water for Africa® for supporting our school feeding program; enabling the children to stay healthy and strong to enable them regularly to attend to their learnings.
“Over the past year my greatest joy has been the wonderful smiles we managed to put up on the faces of the children attending Seed School. This grant support is the sole lifeline that enables us to propel the operations to meet the needs of the community here, support the school operations and implement the feeding program.
“It is a modern-day miracle and wonder by God’s grace to experience such fulfilments come to pass.
“The support received from Bread and Water for Africa® has made the transformation of the lives of the children here a reality.
“This is what I can attest to and proclaim as a major achievement.”
