Empower Children and Women in the slums of Kampala

Did you know that every 10minutes a child in our community goes to bed on an empty stomach? The lack of access to essential goods has led to the highest levels of food insecurity in Uganda. The obvious reason is that everybody needs food. But the complexity of delivering sufficient food to the population is a challenge. Food insecurity is stubbornly high in Uganda that 16.4 million Ugandans face insufficient food consumption according to the World Food Program (WFP). Population growth, poverty and climate change have made the situation even tougher and this has created uncertain future for mostly famers and everyone who depends on agriculture as a source of live hood. For children, food insecurity is very devastating that it has led to serious implications for a child’s physical and mental health and their academic achievements by affecting concentration, memory, mood and motor skills all of which a child needs to be able to be successful in school. Children dealing with hunger have had a harder time forming friendships and interacting with friends as well as maintain self-control or even listen instructions Most women in my community have suffered from gestational diabetes, iron deficiency and low birth weight during pregnancy due to food insecurity Mothers skip meals so their children can have enough food which has raised their like hood of illness, stress and depression. Addressing the problem of hunger and malnourishment in our community requires improvements in the productivity of the agriculture sector, particularly smallholder farms and employment opportunities. Joy for Children Uganda with the support of donors provided essential sustenance, food and water to 150 children in the slums of Kampala which gave the children a gift nourishment and opportunity to thrive.By supporting Joy for Children Uganda Feed 1200 children and 400 women project you will help in giving more people benefits through nutrition assistance programs, increasing benefit amounts and addressing unemployment to reduce food insecurity in our community.

In a typical traditional rural Ugandan family, the main meal is dinner. That means that, in most families, children skip breakfast. In addition, when having dinner, a scale of hierarchy comes in place. The elderly get the most food and meat while the children only receive the remaining part of what the male adults don’t eat. This also means that children go to school the next morning on a hungry stomach and can result in malnutrition.

A year ago, Brenda (not real name) would watch other children eat their packed lunch at school while she stayed behind in class because her family could not afford packed lunch for young girl. But a mere $50 per year helped the shy eight-year-old Ugandan girl take her place among students in the Mulago slum community in the central part of the country. Poor children are enrolling and staying in school, enticed by the daily meals they receive.

“When I wake up in the morning, I get ready to go to school very quickly because I know that good food is waiting for me,” says Brenda. “I’m happy that I can spend the whole day at school learning and I don’t have to walk the long way home hungry. I like eating rice every day. In my family, we eat rice only two or three times a year.”

Many children arrive at school having had little or no breakfast. Without a lunch at school some children would choose to stay at home, while those at school would go through the day learning on an empty stomach or be forced to walk home at lunchtime in the hope of finding a meal.

Despite the physical benefits of a having lunch at school- especially in body and mind — it is important to remember that access to food is a human right that both national and international communities must recognize. The right to food is linked to one’s right to life and dignity.

Through your generous donations, we have partnered with selected schools in the slum communities of kampala city to provide lunch for the school going children. Our feeding program provides our partner schools with the foodstuffs to serve a daily term-time lunch to each and every pupil. It is a basic but nutritious meal of maize/rice and beans, however for many of these children; it is often their only guaranteed meal of the day.

By providing a daily lunch to children in school we remove hunger as a barrier to learning. An active feeding program encourages pupils to attend school in the first place and then keeps them there throughout the day. The programme also provides health and educational benefits to these vulnerable and impoverished children by helping to keep minds and bodies fuelled for productive and successful learning, allowing them to focus on their education rather than their empty stomach.

The demand is still high and we can only do a little, but with you support we can do much. $ 10 can buy 10 kilograms of maize flour, $20 can buy 20 kilograms of beans and can feed 50 children for 2 days.