Comfort International has been working with local partners to fight hunger in some of the poorest areas in Africa. In children, malnutrition has devastating effects for life in terms of health, education, opportunity and quality of life. We want to help eliminate hunger in a way that empowers young people to take control of their future. Through partnership with Good News International, as well as Comfort Rwanda and Comfort Congo, our Feeding Projects have made a difference to hundreds of lives.
School Feeding Programme
Last year, we shared with you how providing school meals was changing the future for children in communities in Bisesero, where families are predominantly subsistence farmers and paying to eat at school was problematic. We shared with you how in a group of forty children receiving school meals, attendance went up by over 40% and behaviour and demeanour markedly improved among the students compared to when they were not receiving school meals. This year sixty students, some existing and some new to the project, are being supported to have school meals. We wanted to share with you Vivian’s* story, and how receiving school meals has affected her:
“Before I started getting lunch at school, I was used to staying without having lunch, but the afternoon was always difficult for me because sometimes I was sleeping in class, and sometimes I was not happy during the afternoon session, so I would go somewhere and sleep and wait for the evening when everyone went home and I could go home. My parents were not able to pay the money for me to have lunch. The problem was that sometimes when I went home I found that there was still nothing to eat. There were some days when I had nothing to eat all day. I study well now and I’m very happy. I’m no longer sleeping in the afternoon. I’m always on time now. I’m enjoying school much more now.”
Birara Nursery Nutrition
At Birara Nursery School in Bisesero, young children are at a high risk of malnutrition, and this has historically resulted in low attendance at nursery and further schooling, and a high dropout rate from education. Our partners at Good News International implemented a nutrition project which we have been supporting. Originally, we were providing a healthy nutritious breakfast, but the programme now also includes lunch.
Last year, 73 children were enrolled on the nursery nutrition project, and the number of children showing any signs of malnutrition was reduced from twenty-three to two by the end of the year. As there are new children enrolled on the project for the new year, there are now some children showing signs of malnutrition. It is the aim of the project that by the end of the school year we will see:
- An average attendance of at least 90%
- Children with severe malnutrition signs: 0
- Children with mild malnutrition signs: 0
Sake Feeding Project
As a result of the ever increasing intensity of the violence and conflict in the North Kivu area of the Democratic Republic of Congo, countless children are being made orphans on a daily basis, and are fighting hunger and death relentlessly. Last year, many of these orphans and malnourished children came together at Sake where our partners Comfort Congo, together with the Free Methodist Church in the region, started providing emergency food and care. The Central Hospital Rusayu also provided emergency medical care for some of the children showing the most severe signs.
Donations towards the Feeding Projects have helped to provide rice, beans, porridge, maize and more to these children, some of whom were very much walking through the valley of the shadow of death. However, the situation remains grave. In the last few months, fighting has become even more violent and overtaken the area where the children in Sake were being cared for. They have been evacuated to an Internally Displace People (IDP) camp, where they are in urgent need of further care and resources.
Other Feeding Projects
Due to the success of the Feeding Projects, last year we told you that we would be rolling the model out to other projects throughout Africa, including to Street Kids Rescue Projects in Rwanda, DRC and Burundi, Children of Liberty (ex-child soldiers), the nutritional wing at Central Hospital Rusayu, DRC and Child Support in South Sudan, as well as continuing to support Nursery Nutrition at Birara Nursery and School Feeding Projects and now Sake. Many of these projects are supported by sponsorship, but there is often a gap between the money provided and the money needed, especially due to the huge increase in cost of living since the Covid crisis. Your donations have made sure that children and families across our projects in Africa have not gone hungry and we thank you for that.
In South Sudan over 7 million people are struggling for food. Donations like yours help make sure children like Liam* don’t go hungry:
“I can now go to school, eat at the project and get given food at home. We used to be very hungry, spending a day not eating, but now we even eat at school as the project covers our food there.”
Thank you once again for your donations towards the Comfort International Feeding Projects. We really believe that a little can change a life, and we hope you can see that many lives have been changed through the work of our amazing partners, capacitated through your donations. No child should ever have to go hungry. No mother should ever have to worry about how to feed her children. Please help us continue to join with our partners to fight against hunger across Rwanda, DRC, South Sudan, Burundi and Uganda.
*names and photos changed to protect identity