For many impoverished children living in the Kenya slum of Nairobi known as Kibera, they are faced with an impossible choice – whether to take the opportunity to attend school, or to spend their days begging for shillings so they can eat.
They understand that obtaining an education is their only way of escaping dire poverty where they live with their parents, if they have them, and likely many siblings in a shack with an average size of 12 feet by 12 feet with mud walls and where they sleep on a dirt floor.
In a community where the few who can actually find a job, they are working for less than $1 – and that’s not per hour, it’s per day!
Their other choice is to stay out of school, fending for themselves and counting on the kindness of others, most not much better off than themselves, for money to feed themselves and their siblings.
But thanks to the supporters of Bread and Water for Africa®, today there are 204 children who attend the Seed School located in the heart of Kibera, who are filling their minds with knowledge, and where they receive two healthy, filling meals twice each school day.
The Seed School was founded in November 2007, starting with a student body population of just 23 children which in 17 years has grown tenfold, and as of this past July “we have been able to see a successful graduation rate of over 700 children from our school,” says Patrick Odongo, the founder and director of the Seed Foundation, which operates the school.
“Some have been successful in attending higher learning institutions and are now in the job market and working in the business sector,” Patrick reported.
It’s a remarkable trajectory for these children – now young adults starting families on their own – from unimaginable poverty to prosperity and self-sufficiency made possible through education, in tandem with the school feeding program that helped to make it possible to for them to grow up healthy, happy and successful.
The United Nations’ World Food Program (WFP) states, “Well-designed school feeding programs have demonstrated high returns in four important areas — education, nutrition, social protection and local agriculture — all of which translate into human capital growth and sustainable development.”
Carmen Burbano, WFP Director of School Feeding, notes that “The benefits of this investment (in school feeding) extend beyond the schools to entire communities… and governments will reap the benefits in human capital.”
But, according to the WFP, more than 60 million children in Africa live in extreme poverty, without access to school feeding programs.
And that’s why the Seed School’s feeding program, funded by the supporters of Bread and Water for Africa®, is so important in the lives of 204 Kenyan students with big dreams – today and for decades into the future.
