Feed 600 Children School Lunch in Tanzania

For this update, I would like to share my personal experience with the challenges African students face in terms of meals. Before I became the Operations Manager for AfricAid, I spent 8 months volunteering in Uganda. I spent a lot of my time visiting primary and secondary schools to play soccer and interact with the kids. When I first heard and saw how little food children receive at school, I was heart broken. Many girls I met told me about their daily one hour walk each way to and from school. This walk was normally done after they finished their morning work of collecting firewood, washing dishes, preparing tea and collecting water, which left them exhausted once they finally arrive at school. With many schools not having the funds to provide a lunch, most students grew tired and had a difficult time focusing in class. As school is already expensive for many rural households, families do not have enough money to contribute to the school for lunch expenses, making school meals a distant dream. These same issues are occuring in many rural and semi urban locations throughout Africa, Tanzania being one of them. When I joined AfricAid's team and learned of the School Lunch Program, I was so pleased to learn that we are providing lunch for students at Losinoni Primary School in Tanzania. Even better, we are involving the community in the effort with students' mothers making bracelets to sell here in the US as contribution to the food costs! This program is truly making a big difference in the lives of the 650 students. Imagine what it would be like to try to focus and keep up with your studies with an empty stomach. Now students at Losinoni are receiving higher marks and are able to concentrate in class. Thank you all for making this happen and we look forward to continuing this project in 2014 and years to come!