Feed 600 Children School Lunch in Tanzania

Losinoni village is in the Oldonyo Sambu District of Northern Tanzania and the children that attend the local primary school are all drawn from the surrounding Maasai villages. The school started in 1975 with just 80 students and now has close to 600. The youngest are the 4-5 year olds in ‘nursery school’ and the oldest are those in their final year of primary school, Standard 7.

Many students walk over 3 miles in each direction to attend school each day, frequently doing so on an empty stomach.  Making things even more difficult for the children, many suffer skeletal fluorosis because of the very high fluoride levels in the local water supply.

AfricAid began supporting Losinoni Primary School in 2004 and since then has been involved in a number of projects including classroom construction and renovation, provision of desks, building toilets, providing a computer and printer for staff use, and the highly successful school lunch program. We also oversaw the installation of rainwater tanks so that the school is able to provide safe drinking water for students and staff, and to cook the daily lunch using uncontaminated, fluoride-free water.

Since the introduction of the school lunch program, school attendance has increased, student concentration levels have increased, and there is more active classroom participation. As a result, student performance in the national Standard Seven Examinations has risen from a pass rate of just 23% in 2004, to 87% in 2014!  By way of comparison, the national pass rate for 2014 was 57%. In 2014 Losinoni was ranked the number one primary school in the district.

AfricAid believes there are three main reasons for Losinoni’s outstanding success:

• Losinoni has teachers and administrators who care deeply about improving learning outcomes for the children
• The children are welcomed each day to safe, cheerful classroom buildings and campus
• A hot, delicious, nutritious meal of makande is served for lunch each day. 

The School Lunch Program has been listed on Global Giving for more than five years now and we feel it is the right time to consider other methods of fund-raising for the program. So while we are withdrawing this project from Global Giving, AfricAid will continue to support Losinoni Primary School and donors who would like to contribute to the highly successful school lunch program can do so directly through the AfricAid website. Just visit www.africaid.com and go to the Donations page.

We'd like to express our deep gratitude for the role you have played in being part of this success story, and hope that you will continue to support Losinoni PrimarySchool.