Next Child Is Waiting

The IPC Acute Food Insecurity Analysis Report covering July to September 2022, indicates that, over 1.35 million Zambians are experiencing severe food insecurity due to incidences of poverty, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, macroeconomic instability, high input and food prices and exposure to climatic shocks.

Sadly, just as elsewhere in the country, Eastern Province is among the most stressed, with Vubwi, Petauke and Mambwe districts graded as reaching levels of food crises.?Accordingly, World Food Programme (WFP) estimates that around 15% of primary school aged children in Zambia remain out of school due to hunger.

As if this isn’t enough pain for worrying already, the report projects that between October 2022 and March 2023, twelve of the fourteen districts in Eastern Province, will reach food crisis levels. For Eastern Province to lack food between January and April, when the rain season has peaked, can be a sorry situation.

Already, the province has continued seeing a rising number of learners getting back to school in the hope of getting a portion of the Mary’s Meals porridge offered in the 752 target schools dotted in 11 districts of the province. On one deeper thought, the rising retention rate is something exciting to write home about. On the other view, it’s a tough punch-to-punch bolt. The result has demanded for drastic programme implementation adjustments in the Mary’s Meals Feeding Programme as it tries to meet the demand.

But should this be reason enough to throw the towel on these attempted efforts? This isn’t even a question one would consider serving on a table of discussion. The School Feeding Programme’s impact has escalated hopes among primary school going children more than the looming pressures of demand it is encountering.

Take the story of Michael for instance. Schoolwork makes him sharper, but hunger messes up his concentration on schoolwork. The seventeen-year-old pupil at Madzi Atuwa Primary School in Eastern Province, says since the coming of Marys Meals at his school, he no longer sneaks out of classes because of the porridge they eat every school day.

“In the past, we would get very hungry, and would opt to leave school and go home to search for something to eat,” Michael recalls. “It is hard to concentrate on schoolwork when you are hungry. You can’t focus. Now even when some of us have to leave home without eating, we know we shall not go hungry once we get to school because of Mary’s Meals porridge,” Michael, the medical doctor dreamer, reiterates.

One may be tempted to scorn these stories as pity cries for attention seeking. As a matter of fact, however, Michael’s story reveals a common picture of many rural school going pupils.

In his submission during the School Feeding Day celebrations in Lusaka early this year, National Action for Quality Education in Zambia (NAQEZ) Executive Director Aaron Chansa noted that schools that carry out the school feeding programme have continued to record good academic performances. He cited the Botswana government as spending a significant amount of money to feed learners in all schools, resulting to the country’s good academic performance.

Zambia National Education Coalition (ZANEC) Executive Director, George Habasunga also pointed out that school feeding programmes reduce absenteeism and dropout rates in schools. He said many children, despite the government’s free education policy, do not go to school because they are hungry.

Mary’s Meals however, resolved to give children in similar circumstances, as many chances as they deserve to be back in class. Since 2014, the School Feeding Programme has not just seen a high pupil retention rate in the 752 schools but also recorded rare stories of resilience and hope like that of Benjamin Nyika.

He dropped out of Grade 9 at Lundazi Boarding School because his parents could no longer sustain his desire to get an education. Their household poverty levels, stood between their decision to either support his educational needs or focus on feeding him and his siblings. They chose the latter. He got a job as a cattle herder, until his friends one day asked him to go with them to eat porridge at school.

“They told me to go with them to school so that I would eat porridge they said was being served for free. I couldn’t believe them because nothing like that had ever happened in our community before,” Benjamin recalls.

So, he took his chances; came to school and ate. A week later he enrolled in Grade 5 despite being a Grade 9 drop out. His misplaced school performance gave him out. He skipped Grade 5 to Grade 7, then to Grade 10 within a year. Naturally, it was understandable, though the teachers didn’t know what was at play.?He went on to complete Grade 12 in 2016 while still on the Mary’s Meals feeding programme. In 2018 he entered Nkrumah University graduating with a Merit in BA Ed in 2021.?

Amazing is an understatement.

A 5-year impact study of Mary’s Meals’ School Feeding Programme in Zambia reveals that children under the programme were three times, more likely to participate in class than those not yet on the programme, and that enrolment levels increased by 25% in target schools.

Michael and Benjamin may stand as learner figure heads of the School Feeding Programme that supports more than 425,000 learners currently. This, however, is not, and must not be satisfying to anyone. Eastern Province still has three more districts not yet supported, with thousands of learners waiting for this service.

If we have to look at Eastern Province’s next-door neighbour Muchinga; or further afield Western and Luapula Provinces, we will understand that it doesn’t need rocket science to be compelled to step forward and do something about this rising demand for feeding school going children at their places of learning, for them to exercise their right to education. Even the bare minimum standards they can afford, if they come without them having to think of what they will eat, then it isn’t asking too much. Time to act is now.