Empower Children and Women in the slums of Kampala

The absence of school feeding schemes is one of the leading causes of poor performance in class for children in rural and slum communities of Uganda and it has not been given attention by the Ugandan authorities. Instead, as a national policy, parents are expected to provide meals even though many, especially in the rural and slum areas cannot afford to provide even the minimal daily bowl of maize porridge.

Nutrition, or the lack of it, has recently been recognized as an important additional factor because studies have identified under-nutrition with poor school achievement.

Several factors including food insecurity, poverty, distance between home and school and lack of commitment make the parents involved unable to provide meals for their children which is a cause of irregular school attendance, particularly in rural areas. Most pupils are unable to take a packed lunch and travel long distances to attend school; and those who stay on at school forgo lunch.

“I am very worried about the next school term; I have not cleared school fees and even worried about what the children will feed on while at school. Times are hard, we bare eat these days”, says Maureen (not real name)

The draft school health policy for Uganda (SHP) gives no clear guidelines on the place and implementation of school feeding as part of the school health program. There has been limited progress in implementing the proposed nutrition education within the SHP.

To alleviate this problem, interventions in the education sector, such as a national school feeding program, is needed not only to help the disadvantaged children to access education but also to uplift educational standards and improve nutritional status. However, Government interventions are not in isolation, there is need for integration of other actors such as Faith Based organizations, individuals and the Private sector.

We are fundraising to feed 300 school going children in rural Ugandan schools with breakfast and lunch time meals. $50 will buy 25kgs of maize flour; $100 will buy 50kgs of beans for a family of 4. Kindly support our cause

While the pandemic affected nations and segments of society around the world, the urban poor living in slums (a total of 1.58 million people to 2.1 million people) were particularly hard hit, with over 90 percent of the COVID-19 cases recorded in cities.

The large majority of the slum households are food insecure and suffer from low dietary quality. Rates of undernourishment are considerably suggesting that slum dwellers deserve more explicit attention in initiatives to improve nutrition. Household-level indicators are significantly correlated with individual-level indicators for women and children. In urban Kampala slums, only one household in five is food-secure, and nearly half of all households are categorized as “food-insecure with both adult and child hunger.” evidence indicates that parents often forego food in order to prioritize their children.

With the escalating prices of commodity prices such as cooking oil, sugar, rice and maize flour, many households in the slum communities often live without food as most of them live on hand to mouth.

In Makerere kivulu, one of Kampala’s largest slums, about 20 % of households go a whole day and night without food.

“Now that children are back home for holidays, I do not have what to feed them, I make maize porridge in the morning that we all feed on during the day”. Says Rose (Not real name).

Her story is just a tip of the iceberg of what most households go through on a daily basis, Children and women are most affected.

Please support our campaign to feed the hungry living in the slum communities in Kampala.