Despite leading the continent in incorporating students into primary and secondary systems of education, East Africa retains acute socio-economic problems. More than 55 million extremely poor people inhabit just the three nations of Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania. This situation cannot improve without addressing poor school attendance by children whose family circumstances customarily pressure them into prioritizing work over education and not obtaining the valuable knowledge and skills that could help them secure higher-paying jobs and bid farewell to poverty. NGOs are working on feeding school children in East Africa to improve attendance rates and simultaneously target issues like hunger and malnutrition.
School Attendance Rates in East Africa
In Kenya, 92% of those aged between 7 and 14 were receiving education in 2008. A decade later, UNICEF continued to record 1.5 million prospective primary schoolers missing out on learning. In other East African countries, the issue is direr. In Tanzania, from ages 5 to 6, the school attendance rates already drop by nearly 10%.
Feeding School Children in East Africa
Nonprofit organizations are actively altering this dynamic. By routinely feeding school pupils, the organizations demonstrate that enrolment in school can also involve getting adequate nutrition. It is a win-win situation as students simultaneously gain important academic and professional insights and receive a much-needed meal. Moreover, this work shows that education may improve one’s living standards not only in the long run but in the short run as well.
Food4Education
This Kenyan organization feeds young students locally sourced meals in the nation’s Kiambu and Nairobi counties at a subsidized rate of $0.15. Having started with only 25 food recipients, it has already served around one million meals, helping children enhance their school attendance and performance in class and in examinations. It hopes to reach out to all the primary school children in Kenya in the future.
In addition to attracting donations and using a mobile app, Tap2Eat, for parents to pay to subsidize their children’s low lunch fee, Food4Education also manages a restaurant in the country’s capital. Some of its revenue is used to fund school lunches and increase the NGO’s output.
The group’s impact remains localized but its recognition suggests that its efforts are sizeable. In June 2020, Wawira Nijru, the Food4Education’s founder, joined the prestigious Ford Global Fellowship Program. As part of this scheme, the United States-based Ford Foundation will invest in the NGO and offer advice to amplify its contribution in Kenya.
East African Children’s Fund
Operating in Kenya with a reported budget of $170,000, the organization supplies more than 1,000 schoolchildren in impoverished areas with a mixture of fruits, vegetables, meat and fish. By procuring these products from the local communities, this organization likewise guarantees that the funding utilized in the process stays with the people needing it the most. The organization also distributes clothes and mosquito nets among schoolchildren and helps ensure that they are vaccinated. After all, missing school due to illness is equally a problem in a country, where more than three million people contract malaria each year.
The East African Children’s Fund’s purview extends into supporting sustainable farming techniques and projects in Kenya by, inter alia, promoting beekeeping and teaching young villagers to harvest rainwater and prevent water loss during field irrigation.
In 2019, it served close to 570,000 school meals, thereby causing an 80% reduction in local infirmary visits by schoolchildren. Between 2017 and 2019, more than 10,000 rural Kenyans received training in nutrition techniques from the group as well.
Mary’s Meals
This Scottish-registered charity is alleviating hunger in Malawi, Uganda and Kenya. In the former, it boasts a network of 80,000 volunteers who serve low-cost meals to as many as 30% of the nation’s primary school students in 20 different districts. In the other two nations combined, as many as 80,000 students are benefitting from school meals. A large proportion of them inhabit areas, such as the Kenyan town of Eldoret, where every second household falls below the poverty line.
Besides relying on volunteers, the group has full-time employees based in the target countries. Their task is to ensure compliance with hygiene standards and food quality by conducting regular school visits and compiling data on pupil and teacher satisfaction.
Based on approximately 4,000 responses collected in 2016, the number of Malawi pupils experiencing hunger during the school day decreased sixfold within fewer than 12 months. A comparable household survey registered a similarly impressive 64% decline in the number of adult respondents believing that their children were hungry at school. Most importantly, many more teachers have stopped describing classroom hunger levels as worrying. Considering that all the relevant parties are recognizing a difference, the NGO’s contribution is certainly worth mentioning.
Feeding school children in East Africa also mitigates malnourishment among the locals and facilitates the process of climbing out of poverty, since, through education, children could acquire the skills to qualify for better-paid jobs and escape reliance on subsistence farming.
– Dan Mikhaylov
Photo: Flickr
How Tanzania is Improving its Education
Challenges and Progress in Tanzania
Tanzania is a country that has experienced severe poverty levels throughout its history. Yet over the past decade, the country has also made significant strides in reducing its poverty rate. While in 2007 Tanzania had a poverty rate of 34.4%, with more than a third of the population living under the poverty line, that number had fallen to 28.2% by 2012 and again to 26.4% by 2018.
This data shows a clear improvement in Tanzania’s poverty levels but it also reveals a slowing of the progress being made in fighting poverty in the country, with a roughly 6% reduction of the poverty rate between 2007 and 2012 and a roughly 2% reduction of the poverty rate from 2012 to 2018. Nearly 50% of Tanzania’s population still fall below the extreme poverty income line, meaning they are living on less than $1.90 a day.
While Tanzania’s economic progress had already been slowing in the last few years, the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic is on track to hinder the country’s economic development even further. Both the formal and informal economies of Tanzania have been impacted by the effects of the pandemic, with Tanzania’s tourism industry being especially crippled.
The Tanzanian government estimates that only about 437,000 people will visit Tanzania from outside the country this year, which is a significant reduction from the 1,867,000 tourists estimated in 2019. It is predicted that Tanzania will lose around 146,000 jobs due to this drop in tourism.
Education Challenges in Tanzania
Yet, Tanzania is improving its education to reduce poverty among its poorer populations. In an effort to reduce poverty, the Tanzanian government has made investments in education over the past decade. Since 2007, Tanzania’s government has worked to provide free education for all its people and from 2011 to 2016, it increased its education spending budget by more than half. This led to a sharp increase in the rate of primary education enrollment but by 2012 this rate had fallen by nearly 20%.
While the efforts of Tanzania’s government to make education free have been broadly effective, many impoverished communities in Tanzania still struggle to access formal education. The cost of the tuition itself is only part of the total cost of education and many impoverished people in Tanzania are unable to afford the costs of traveling to and from school. In some rural parts of Tanzania, students have to travel nearly 15 miles every day just to receive an education.
As a result, many people in Tanzania choose to forgo formal education, with more than half of Tanzania’s rural population being illiterate.
Possible Solutions to Improve Education
Investing more in transportation systems for students may help to alleviate some of the financial burdens that impoverished communities face. Investing in teachers may also help Tanzania overcome its low education rate, as many public schools in Tanzania have many more students than available teachers. According to UNICEF, for every trained teacher at the pre-primary level of public education in Tanzania, there are roughly 131 students, meaning that many public schools in Tanzania end up being understaffed. By investing more funding into training teachers, the Tanzanian government could further improve its public education systems, which would improve career opportunities among its poorest communities.
Taking Action
Tanzania’s government has recognized the need to improve education among its populace. Currently, UNICEF is working with Tanzania’s President’s Office Regional Administration and Local Government to bring increased education opportunities to more communities throughout the country. By working with the government, UNICEF hopes to develop policies that will allow for more effective and accessible systems of education to be established within the next year.
Tanzania’s economic development has faced significant roadblocks in the past, with the COVID-19 pandemic being especially detrimental. However, it is clear that Tanzania is improving its education to reduce poverty among its population. To reduce poverty rates and improve career opportunities, the Tanzanian government is investing in better education for its citizens. With the help of organizations such as UNICEF, Tanzania may see a lower poverty rate than ever before.
– Marshall Kirk
Photo: Flickr
3 Initiatives Addressing Hunger in Spain
Spain has shown remarkable resilience and growth over the past decade. Following the 2008 recession and debt crisis, the Spanish economy experienced a period of intense growth, which was fueled by a booming tourism sector and a steady inflow of immigrants. Today, Spain’s growth rate exceeds the eurozone average, which places the country at the 14th-largest economy in the world.
However, while these factors qualify Spain as a developed country, hunger remains a concerning issue for many Spaniards. As of 2021, approximately 13.3% of Spanish households face food insecurity. Increasing temperatures and cuts to social assistance programs are expected to exacerbate this issue, particularly for vulnerable groups such as children. Fortunately, Spain is implementing a variety of programs to identify the root causes of hunger and implement long-term solutions. Below are the three most impactful initiatives addressing hunger in Spain that seek to provide vital assistance to hungry Spaniards.
3 Initiatives Addressing Hunger in Spain
Basic Material Assistance Program. In 2024, Spain launched a basic material assistance program to provide vouchers and cards to households in severe poverty for essential items such as food and hygiene products. Through state funding distributed by the Spanish Red Cross, qualifying families will also receive an increase in financial aid, in addition to direct access to fresh produce such as fruit and vegetables from participating supermarkets. Approximately 70,000 families are expected to benefit from this initiative, which aims to alleviate child poverty and improve nutrition rates throughout the country.
2023-27 Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). Effective January 1, 2023, Spain’s CAP Strategic Plan 2023-2027 promotes sustainable agri-food development in hopes of establishing food security and a living rural environment. The primary objectives of the CAP are greater and improved income support, compliance with environmental commitments and implementing a wide range of sustainable measures designed to innovate the entire sector. In addition to direct financial aid distributed from a fund of approximately $54 million, the plan has supported farmers by providing them with tailored training, investments and technology to maximize agricultural yield. Small to medium-sized farmers, as well as rural areas, have benefited from a holistic revitalization of their respective areas, complemented by a reduction in the gender gap and accommodations for generational replacement. Today, the CAP continues to provide multidimensional support to farmers, ultimately seeking to alleviate existing burdens on the agri-food industry.
Action Against Hunger. Since 2013, Action Against Hunger’s branch in Spain has ensured food security and socioeconomic integration of over 38,000 unemployed and vulnerable Spaniards. By offering employment and training pathways, qualifying participants have achieved a 43% job placement rate in less than six months. Furthermore, focused educational programs linking nutritional awareness with employment opportunities have fostered healthy lifestyle habits and professional success in families, particularly among underrepresented groups such as women. Clinical research on improving food insecurity is conducted in collaboration with the European Social Fund (ESF) and the Basic Operational Programme. In 2023, Action Against Hunger distributed an estimated $10 million to more than 5,000 families, and is currently working to exceed this number in the coming years.
The prevalence of food insecurity must engender action by the state. The above initiatives aim to successfully alleviate hunger and help those at risk of experiencing acute food insecurity in Spain, seeking to accomplish a comprehensively developed and supported nation in the near future.
– Noelle Nelson, Moon Jung Kim
Photo: Flickr
Updated: April 25, 2025
The WomenConnect Challenge: 9 Innovative Projects Empowering Women
Through the U.S. government’s Women’s Global Development and Prosperity Initiative (W-GDP), presidential advisor Ivanka Trump and USAID Administrator Mark Green launched the WomenConnect Challenge. With this funding, initiatives seek to shrink the barriers of digital illiteracy and “technophobia” fueled by a lack of complex resources, such as Internet access or formal education. That these barriers unequally limit women and girls leaves entire populations further and further behind in an increasingly digital world. In the first round of the challenge in 2018, USAID awarded more than $2 million to an initial nine innovative projects empowering women and closing gender-based digital divides. The W-GDP initiative hopes to connect 50 million women in developing nations by 2025.
The First Projects that Received Funding
– McKenna Black
Photo: Flickr
Human Milk Banks Ensure Infant Survival in Kenya
Why Breast is Best
Breast milk provides all the vitamins and nutrients a baby needs during the first months of its life, including important antibodies that can help fight many deadly childhood diseases like acute respiratory infections and diarrhea. Additionally, the preparation of breast milk does not require access to clean water or sanitation (unlike formula) and is cost-free and widely accessible for parents.
The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months of life and continued supplementation until 2 years of age. All the benefits of breastfeeding pay off as children who are breastfed have more than six times the chance of surviving than non-breastfed children. Breastfed children often score higher on intelligence tests, maintain healthier weights and have fewer instances of illness. In fact, successful breastfeeding of children aged 0-2 has the potential to prevent 13% of all childhood deaths under 5 years old in countries experiencing extreme poverty.
Trouble breastfeeding can stem from a wide range of issues, like cleft palate, low milk supply, trouble latching, malnutrition, disease or lack of support and counseling before, during and after pregnancy. In Kenya, 362 mothers die for every 100,000 live births, leaving many babies without easy access to breastmilk. When infants do not receive the nutrients they need, it is difficult for them to survive and thrive.
Human Milk Banks
Human milk banks provide safe and lifesaving breast milk to babies who are unable to nurse from their own mothers. Generous donors provide the breast milk. The milk bank screens the donors and processes and pasteurizes the donations, and then, the lifesaving breast milk is redistributed to help babies in need.
Children in this category include prematurely born infants, orphans or cases where a mother is unable to provide breast milk. This effective system ensures that babies can access breast milk that will help them reach their potential. The WHO recommends that in cases where babies are unable to nurse from their mothers, donor milk can be utilized, indicating that donated breast milk is safe and effective for babies who need it.
The Pumwani Maternity Hospital
The Technical Working Group decided on Pumwani Maternity Hospital as the first to provide Kenya with a breast milk bank. This hospital is innovative in terms of neonatal care, promoting skin-to-skin (Kangaroo Mother Care) contact and providing breastfeeding education to parents. In Kenya, the rate of acceptance for breastfeeding is low. One concern with this project was whether mothers would consider breast milk donation an option. Fortunately, researchers from PATH report that locals are warming up to the idea of the bank, which bodes well for the future of the program.
As of October 2019, the Pumwani Maternity Hospital reported delivering lifesaving breast milk from more than 400 donors to 75 infants, a marked success. As a result, the Ministry of Health (MOH) included a recommendation for donated human breast milk in Kenya’s newborn care guidelines. Annually, donor milk has the potential to save the lives of hundreds of thousands of babies. Although there is still a long way to go to achieve widespread access to breast milk for all infants, the success of Pumwani Maternity Hospital stands as a great example of what human breast milk banks can accomplish.
– Noelle Nelson
Photo: Flickr
Tennessee Titans’ Player Builds Schools in Kibera
Blessed Hope Project and the Kenny Vaccaro Foundation
The Blessed Hope Project’s roots began in 2012 after Elsa Atieno founded the Blessed Hope Primary School, where she is now the school’s principal. In 2016, after former New Zealand rugby player, Michael Hobbs, volunteered at the school, the rugby player’s vision for the Blessed Hope Project came to life. Shortly after his visit in 2017, Tennessee Titans’ Vaccaro became an official team member of the Blessed Hope Project. In the same year, Vaccaro founded the Kenny Vaccaro Foundation, which he uses to raise money for various causes but primarily, the Blessed Hope Project. Atieno, Hobbs and Vaccaro jointly make up the Blessed Hope Project’s team.
The goal of Hobbs was to build a higher quality school than the one at which he originally volunteered, which had dirt floors, iron walls and limited space. With the help of the money raised by the Kenny Vaccaro Foundation, the team accomplished this goal in January 2019 and built a solid structured, fully serviced primary school that can accommodate over 300 children. Not only does the Blessed Hope Project team plan to build more schools in Kenya but they have also placed 100% sponsorship of all students and a sports academy on the agenda as well.
Poverty Conditions in Kibera
Atieno recognized that many children from the slums of Kibera were staying at home during the day, sometimes by themselves, rather than attending school. This is not uncommon as Africa has the highest rates of marginalized education in the world. On top of that, Kibera is the largest slum in Africa. Not only are many children excluded from school but their families are living on less than $1 a day. For some children, going to school is how they are ensured a meal for the day. Kibera also faces high unemployment rates.
How Can Education Reduce Poverty?
Increasing high-quality educational access in Kibera can aid in all of the aforementioned issues by providing children with social interaction, food and the teaching of crucial skills for their futures. Specifically for reducing poverty, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) released a policy paper that outlines how the global poverty rate could be cut in half through completion of secondary schooling. As it pertains to the sub-Saharan African and South Asian regions, poverty could be reduced by nearly two-thirds. This prediction comes from UNESCO’s 45-year study on the “average effects of education on growth and poverty reduction in developing countries.”
Humanitarian support like that of the Blessed Hope Project and the Tennessee Titans’ Player, Vaccaro, plays a crucial role in eradicating global poverty as educational opportunities pave the way for families to rise up from poverty all over the world.
– Sage Ahrens-Nichols
Photo: Flickr
Brands in the Kitchen Fighting Global Poverty
Brands in the Kitchen Fighting Global Poverty
1. Kellogg’s: In an effort toward achieving the second SDG, zero hunger, Kellogg’s launched its Kellogg’s® Better Days campaign. Since 2015, it has donated 2.4 billion servings of food to people around the world suffering from hunger. Among those receiving Kellogg’s food donations have been 3.2 million children. The goal is to feed 375 million people in need by the end of 2030. Kellogg’s also supports Breakfast Clubs in 21 different countries.
2. General Mills: Another cereal brand in the fight against poverty is General Mills. In 2008, CEO, Ken Powell, founded the nonprofit, Partners in Food Solutions. Various other companies have since joined the organization and work together to help African food processors succeed. The goal is to improve food security, nutrition and economic development in Africa. Over 100,000 volunteer hours have been put towards advising these food processors and planning technical or business projects in Africa. Additionally, volunteers from world-class corporations have developed 651 customized projects for their African clients.
3. Nestlé: The company Nestlé has identified a few of the SDGs to target in its sustainability strategy. The third SDG promotes good health and well-being. To support this SDG, Nestlé launched its global initiative, Nestlé for Healthier Kids, with which it hopes to help 50 million kids around the world live healthier lives through nutritional education by 2030. So far, the campaign has reached 27.2 million children. Nestlé also recognizes the need for addressing extreme poverty among workers around the world. As a stride towards SDG 8, decent work and economic growth, Nestlé launched the Nestlé Needs YOUth campaign. The initiative’s goal is to help 10 million young people access economic opportunities by providing them with skills, education and help in making agriculture a more thriving field. Yet another SDG Nestlé aims to help with is SDG 6, clean water and sanitation. Its global initiative, Caring for Water, involves “reducing withdrawals, reusing water and working with others to protect water at a catchment or community level.” Ultimately, the initiative seeks to increase access to safe water and sanitation around the world.
4. Kraft Heinz: With ending world hunger as a pillar of its foundation, Kraft Heinz is yet another brand in the kitchen fighting global poverty. In 2013, it partnered with the nonprofit Rise Against Hunger, which aids in global hunger relief. Kraft Heinz employees have since packaged 15.2 million meals in 30 to 40 countries. Furthermore, the company launched its Micronutrient Campaign in 2001. This campaign resulted in the creation of a micronutrient packet with essential vitamins and minerals, which promotes healthy growth and development in those suffering from hunger. On the 2019 World Food Day, Kraft Heinz employees from around the world included the micronutrient packet in over one million meal packages for families in need worldwide.
– Sage Ahrens-Nichols
Photo: Flickr
Fighting Period Poverty in Tanzania
UNFPA Tanzania is Educating Both Girls and Boys on Menstruation
The United Nations Population Fund’s (UNFPA) branch in Tanzania has noted the lack of education surrounding menstruation for both men and women. In various places throughout the nation, the organization has noted girls learning that menstruation is shameful and should be hidden (even from other women) or girls are taught nothing about it at all. That is why UNFPA Tanzania has enacted various programs in the country’s Kigoma region to normalize education around menstruation for both sexes. These initiatives include Ujana Wangu Nguvu Yangu (My Youth, My Power), a four-year series of classes that teach Tanzanian adolescents about sexual and reproductive health, including menstruation.
In addition to initiating these programs, UNFPA has taken further steps to ensure that period poverty in Tanzania does not worsen due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It has kept its Adolescent and Youth Centers open with proper social distancing protocols in place so that women and girls in Tanzania still have access to the sanitary products and support they need during their menstrual cycles.
WomensChoice Industries
Lucy Odiwa, a Kenyan woman, grew up surrounded by harmful stigma about menstruation. This experience inspired her to establish WomensChoice Industries, which creates reusable sanitary products in order to decrease period poverty in Tanzania and ensure that girls in the region do not grow up in the same way she did.
Many women in rural Tanzania cannot afford sanitary products so Odiwa began selling her Salama pads, which can be reused for up to three years, for Sh5,000 ($2). In addition to the pads, WomensChoice Industries also manufactures tampons, breast pads and diapers for children and adults, all at a low cost so that the products are more accessible to Tanzania’s low-income communities.
And the work does not stop there. Like UNFPA, WomensChoice Industries provides reproductive education to Tanzanian boys and girls. Representatives from the organization travel across the region to reduce the stigma around menstruation and ensure that adolescent girls are aware of their own sexual and reproductive health. The group has reached more than 1.8 million women with its menstrual health programs as well as 1.2 million females with its affordable and reusable sanitary products.
Made With Hope
Made With Hope is an organization based in the United Kingdom that focuses on increasing access to education for children in Tanzania, whether by building schools or working to improve schools already established by the government. As girls frequently miss class due to their menstrual cycles, the organization has made it a priority to combat period poverty.
In addition to increasing education surrounding menstruation, Made With Hope has created clean and safe spaces in the girls’ schools it has built so that girls can change their sanitary products safely. It has also helped to create local income-generating programs to manufacture these products. The organization has also worked to spread awareness of period poverty in Tanzania around the United Kingdom, inspiring others to get involved with the issue, even from abroad.
While period poverty in Tanzania remains an issue, UNFPA Tanzania, WomensChoice Industries and Made With Hope are all fighting period poverty in Tanzania to ensure that all Tanzanian women and girls receive the sanitary products and menstrual health education they need.
– Daryn Lenahan
Photo: Flickr
7 Facts About the Shot@Life Campaign
7 Facts About the Shot@Life Campaign
for Shot@Life.
Since its beginning in 2011, Shot@Life has amassed more than 350,000 supporters and 2,000 grassroots advocates in all 50 U.S. states who call on their communities to support the campaign for global vaccines. Through education and advocacy, Shot@Life acknowledges the vital role that providing vaccines for children plays in preventing their deaths, especially in developing nations.
– Sara Holm
Photo: Flickr
3 NGOs Feeding School Children in East Africa
School Attendance Rates in East Africa
In Kenya, 92% of those aged between 7 and 14 were receiving education in 2008. A decade later, UNICEF continued to record 1.5 million prospective primary schoolers missing out on learning. In other East African countries, the issue is direr. In Tanzania, from ages 5 to 6, the school attendance rates already drop by nearly 10%.
Feeding School Children in East Africa
Nonprofit organizations are actively altering this dynamic. By routinely feeding school pupils, the organizations demonstrate that enrolment in school can also involve getting adequate nutrition. It is a win-win situation as students simultaneously gain important academic and professional insights and receive a much-needed meal. Moreover, this work shows that education may improve one’s living standards not only in the long run but in the short run as well.
Food4Education
This Kenyan organization feeds young students locally sourced meals in the nation’s Kiambu and Nairobi counties at a subsidized rate of $0.15. Having started with only 25 food recipients, it has already served around one million meals, helping children enhance their school attendance and performance in class and in examinations. It hopes to reach out to all the primary school children in Kenya in the future.
In addition to attracting donations and using a mobile app, Tap2Eat, for parents to pay to subsidize their children’s low lunch fee, Food4Education also manages a restaurant in the country’s capital. Some of its revenue is used to fund school lunches and increase the NGO’s output.
The group’s impact remains localized but its recognition suggests that its efforts are sizeable. In June 2020, Wawira Nijru, the Food4Education’s founder, joined the prestigious Ford Global Fellowship Program. As part of this scheme, the United States-based Ford Foundation will invest in the NGO and offer advice to amplify its contribution in Kenya.
East African Children’s Fund
Operating in Kenya with a reported budget of $170,000, the organization supplies more than 1,000 schoolchildren in impoverished areas with a mixture of fruits, vegetables, meat and fish. By procuring these products from the local communities, this organization likewise guarantees that the funding utilized in the process stays with the people needing it the most. The organization also distributes clothes and mosquito nets among schoolchildren and helps ensure that they are vaccinated. After all, missing school due to illness is equally a problem in a country, where more than three million people contract malaria each year.
The East African Children’s Fund’s purview extends into supporting sustainable farming techniques and projects in Kenya by, inter alia, promoting beekeeping and teaching young villagers to harvest rainwater and prevent water loss during field irrigation.
In 2019, it served close to 570,000 school meals, thereby causing an 80% reduction in local infirmary visits by schoolchildren. Between 2017 and 2019, more than 10,000 rural Kenyans received training in nutrition techniques from the group as well.
Mary’s Meals
This Scottish-registered charity is alleviating hunger in Malawi, Uganda and Kenya. In the former, it boasts a network of 80,000 volunteers who serve low-cost meals to as many as 30% of the nation’s primary school students in 20 different districts. In the other two nations combined, as many as 80,000 students are benefitting from school meals. A large proportion of them inhabit areas, such as the Kenyan town of Eldoret, where every second household falls below the poverty line.
Besides relying on volunteers, the group has full-time employees based in the target countries. Their task is to ensure compliance with hygiene standards and food quality by conducting regular school visits and compiling data on pupil and teacher satisfaction.
Based on approximately 4,000 responses collected in 2016, the number of Malawi pupils experiencing hunger during the school day decreased sixfold within fewer than 12 months. A comparable household survey registered a similarly impressive 64% decline in the number of adult respondents believing that their children were hungry at school. Most importantly, many more teachers have stopped describing classroom hunger levels as worrying. Considering that all the relevant parties are recognizing a difference, the NGO’s contribution is certainly worth mentioning.
Feeding school children in East Africa also mitigates malnourishment among the locals and facilitates the process of climbing out of poverty, since, through education, children could acquire the skills to qualify for better-paid jobs and escape reliance on subsistence farming.
– Dan Mikhaylov
Photo: Flickr
3 Ways Livelihoods in Brunei are Improving
Economic Freedom Index Score (EFIS)
One way to look at this is the Economic Freedom Index Score (EFIS). One can think of this as Bruneians’ freedom of choice as well as their ability to acquire and use goods. Brunei’s EFIS is 66.6 and the nation ranks 61 out of 180 countries. Singapore, the top country, comes in at 89.4, making it the world’s most free economy in the 2020 Index. Then, there is North Korea, the bottom country, which has a score of 4.2. Despite Brunei’s moderate EFIS score, the country is working to boost that number. There are several ways livelihoods in Brunei are improving.
3 Ways Livelihoods in Brunei are Improving
Looking Forward
Overall, livelihoods in Brunei are improving. The administration has focused itself on economic diversification to become less reliant on oil and gas. The unemployment rate has increased, but the country is undergoing steps to combat this with education and jobs. Also, Brunei is updating welfare programs to include further applicant information. This will assist in financial help as well as learning where education or job options are a factor in poverty.
These changes could create a cycle of prosperity and bring more Bruneians out of poverty. However, Brunei needs to establish a set poverty line. That way, the nation can more accurately assess its poverty situation and how much progress is still necessary.
– Heather Babka
Photo: Flickr