Nutrition Program
───────────────────────────
CHALLENGE
Among the communities we work with, there are many issues which heavily impact the quality of everyday life, one of the most devastating challenges is climate change and its effects on farmers and food security. Over the last 10 years, there has been an increase in the frequency of droughts which has led to a rise in food prices, making it even more difficult for families to feed themselves. As our projects are in poverty-stricken parts of a city, there is no nearby ground available for farming, which makes food expensive. Due to the high food prices, 29 % of Ugandan children under five years old suffer from chronic malnutrition. Families often struggle to have enough food on the table. Investing in better nutrition, especially for children, adolescents, and women are proven to be one of the best means we have to transform a child’s health, education and livelihood.
SOLUTION
Our solution is sending the sponsored children to good schools, where they also get a meal during school days. And organize every weekend a nutritious meal for them, especially during their holidays. We started to serve weekly meals from october 2016 onwards. Our warm meals consist of vegetables, meat and or fish to make sure the children receive a healthy varied diet. The weekly meals also are a great social occasional for the children, giving them an opportunity to play and connect. By buying our supplies locally we make sure that the donations are being reinvested into supporting the community as a whole. To become more cost efficient, we started to rent and harvest a field for Maize production since 2020. The Maize field allows us to deliver twice a year 1000 kilos of maize to our projects in Kampala and Jinja, which then will be stored and used during the weekly meals and additional program activities. We also provide “emergency meals” for families who have barely anything to eat, especially during the pandemic we started extra fundraisers to keep the families fed during lockdown.
GOAL
As our number of children keeps growing each quarter, so does our demand for nutritious weekly meals. Our current goal is to keep going with the weekly meals for all our 475 sponsored children. For this we need to raise €12.350 euro a year, which comes down to €1030,- per month. With extra donations we would love to expand our Maize field. 1 Meal for a child is about € 0,50, with the current exchange rate and higher food prices this means we give a child rice and beans with fruits or vegetables and once a month they also get a meal with meat or fish.
