FightTheFamine 2016

The FightTheFamine Porridge Project commenced on the 12th April 2016 providing fortified soya porridge to the students of Chifunga CDSS daily. This project is aimed at fighting the hunger that causes many students of this school to go home early or drop-out. Chifunga CDSS is the only secondary school for 30km, and prior to the project many students had been unable to concentrate in class as most walked or biked for up to 3 hours to attend school without having had breakfast.

Phillip Saidi, form one, is one of these students. Phillip lives over 15km away from school and his parents could hardly afford to provide food for the family once a day, let alone pay the mere $1 a month that would enable him to rent closer to the school. This meant Phillip had to walk for 30km to and from Chifunga Day Secondary School everyday, not eating anything until arriving home at 5:30pm each night. Can you imagine how difficult it must be to concentrate in class under those circumstances? Phillip was not alone. Severe drought and famine this year meant that 80 students had to drop out of school from not being able to pay for their school fees and the majority of students left school early because they were too hungry to continue for any longer.

With your help, volunteers Catie, Victoria and I were able to change this. The donations from such generous caring people have meant that we have been able to start up a project, FightTheFamine, aimed at feeding the 300 students of the school soya porridge each day. We have been able to fundraise around $10,000 so far, which has enabled us to cover all of the initial start-up costs for the project, pay for 5 month’s worth of soya porridge, and sponsor 150 students to attend school for a year.

Here is an outline of how the funds raised have been used so far: (all values are in NZ dollars).

Start Up costs

- We built a shelter for cooking the porridge, costing us $120. This shelter has meant that the cooking of the porridge has been more hygienic because it is always under cover and the floor, walls and benches are all concreted so can be cleaned.

- We designated a store room within the walled school campus and placed a padlocked iron gate over the door for $74 to prevent the soya flour from being stolen.

- We bought two cooking pots and two stoves for $400. We had to pay a lot more for the cooking stoves but we use 65% less firewood with them, which will make the cooking of the porridge more sustainable in the long run. We bought the pots and stoves from Ken’s Steel Manufacturers with the help from the Mary’s Meals organisation.

- 1.5 tonnes of firewood was ordered and delivered to the school for $90, enough firewood to last 3 months.

- Each month we give a $20 allowance to each of the four women that cook the porridge to prevent them from stealing or misusing the flour.

As well as this, we have also been able to purchase 5 month’s worth of soya flour. Each day we go through a 25kg bag of flour to feed the 300 students, which costs us $30. This means the project, with firewood and allowances included, costs $2,132.69 to run each term, and $6398 each year. It only costs $21 to feed a student soya porridge for a whole year.

Sponsoring 150 students to attend school for one academic year has cost $2,943. The annual school fees of a ‘day student’ is $16, while those of an 'open student’ is $24. Open students are young adults who have had to drop out of secondary school - mainly due to not being able to afford the school fees - and then later return to school to finish their education. We are sponsoring 120 day students and 30 open students for the 2016-17 academic year. However, we are only able to pay for these students’ school fees for one year, though we would love to be able to support them for longer.

Setting up this project has been so rewarding as the school has seen a significant decrease in absenteeism and drop-out rates, and the students’ participation in class has increased immensely. Only 1 girl dropped out of school whilst the project was running due to early teenage pregnancy, compared to the 34 girls in the two terms prior to FightTheFamine. We were able to bring struggling students back to the school, who are now so much more motivated to attend and learn as they have comfort in knowing that they will be fed. We have also been much more successful at implementing study circles and tutorials after school as students have been fed and are more able to concentrate for a longer period of time.

Just $37 can sponsor and feed a child for a year. It is through donations that we will be able to keep this project running for years to come. Any contributions make an enormous difference to helping these children complete their education and have a better future. All funds raised go directly towards the efforts of the FightTheFamine project. Help us to reach the next year of porridge for these students!