Emergency Family Relief Food and Nutrition Support

With children now at home and schooling in the hands of parents; the community faces multiple challenges in ensuring that the children are safe and have enough food. Schools play a very significant role in keeping the children all time busy and engaged. Covid-19 meant that children remain home till the time the Government is able to ensure the safety of its children. As parents, guardians and caregivers try to make the ends meet, children cannot wait to eat, play and get busy in every activity they know better. 

It is on this backdrop that we are supported to provide food and keep the children engaged in farming activities. In the past few months, we have been providing food to children every Saturday and Sunday and engaging them into farming activities. Children enjoy learning agribusiness and farming activities, they get busy and involved in activities that excite their minds, curiosity and challenge them in thinking through positive ways in making something happen. 

Children and families enjoy sharing food together, work and stories about the challenges/experiences they go through in the community. Children coming daily at our Centre from the community are engaged by our trained peer mentors’ team in varsity life skills and topics. This has reduced significantly abuse cases in the community.

Sharing food with families and children is away to support families that lost their jobs during the pandemic and the children that have no food at home. One a daily basis we serve between 250 to 320 children with cooked food. 

We have engaged 56 children on rotational basis to learning vertical gardening, urban gardening and diverse agricultural activities weekly. This has enabled children to plan different kinds of vegetables that supplement the food we cook for them. The knowledge gained is shared with the children families where 23 families have already set up vertical gardening in front of their houses. 

We are supporting 28 families with dry food on weekly basis. These are mostly single headed families that have a mother as the bread winner. The 28 families have come together and currently we are helping them located a land for a greenhouse. This will be a boost to them both as a business and more so supplement their individual families.