AFTER SCHOOL PROGRAMME FOR ORPHANS AND VULNERABLE CHILDREN ENCOURAGES CLASS ATTENDANCE

 

The United Nations’ statistics on hunger show that the majority of the world’s hungry people live in developing countries, where 12.9 per cent of the population is undernourished. Moreover, 66 million primary school children attend classes hungry across the developing world, with 23 million in Africa alone.

Ambuya Development Centre (ADC) understands the need to support the vast number of orphaned and vulnerable children. ADC has noticed that a large number of rural Thanganyika Village, Blantyre’s vulnerable children fail to perform well in school as a result of the hardships in their respective homes, which causes these children to later proceed to dropout of school as they feel a grave need to contribute to their households, as a result of the lack of food and resources in their respective homes.

In an effort to encourage learner participation and reduce the number of school dropouts, ADC has a feeding programme that currently caters to over 350 orphaned and vulnerable learners (learners) that attend school. The feeding programme incentives these learners to attend school for the “reward” of a hearty and nutritious meal each day.

Further to the above, the incentive of a hearty meal often results in the parents of these vulnerable children, being more inclined to encourage and enroll their children into school. An even more outstanding result of this programme is that it discourages parents from marrying off their minor children, often as young as thirteen (13) years of age, for lack of food and resources.

The ADC food programme does not limit the empowerment programme to simply providing learners with a wholesome meal. It encompasses a whole rounded programme that exposes learners to the numerous opportunities that are available to them from receiving an education.

The programme encourages studying through its after school homework programme, encourages team work through its after lunch chores, and encourages learners to not despair and trust in God, in the face of hardship, through its bible study sessions.
Further to the above, the ADC feeding programme educates learners on the importance of hygiene and sanitation. Young girls are educated on their menstrual cycle and fundraising efforts are currently underway to provide these young girls with sanitary towels, to ensure that no classes are missed every month as a result of their menstrual cycle.
The feeding programme, is perhaps the most impactful programme at present and requires funding for, amongst other things, food supplies, educators, school resources such as basic stationery and uniforms, a small library for text books that learners may use for homework.

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