If you are a supporter of our Feeding Projects, you should have recently received our impact report on how the Projects have been affecting and transforming lives across our partner countries this year. If you haven’t read it yet – you need to know what’s been going on with the Feeding Projects! Read the full report here or capture the highlights in this blog post.
School Feeding Programme
For a number of years now, Comfort International has worked with long-term partners Good News International to support children in low income families to receive school meals at Bisesero Secondary School (BSS). This has been expanded now to 100 children; 40 of them from BSS, 20 from various schools in the Gishyita community, and 40 from various schools in Mubuga community. The last reports have shown the difference that receiving school meals has made to many of the pupils at BSS, and this report encompasses all of the children now receiving support.
Our data is gathered by Good News International who speak directly with the project students at the beginning and end of the school year and also interview the teachers who see first-hand the impact of the project on the pupils. At the beginning of the year, the project students’ performance was measuring at 40-60%. A small number of them had a performance above 60%, all of whom had been on the programme the previous year. At the end of the school year, the students’ performance had increased remarkably to between 59% and 77%. A small number of individuals remained below 59%, although these were identified to be experiencing other issues including family troubles or illness.
23 of the project students sat the National Exams to proceed from S3 to S4 and an incredible 98% of them passed these, allowing them to move onto other schools or move up within the same school. 35 project students sat their S6 National Exam, and 100% of them passed and got A level certificates! Among these, 21 received scholarships to study in the public universities – an incredible achievement. The percentage of those who got scholarships to university is twice as high when compared to other students who were not in the programme (as they can afford to buy school meals).
Good News International says, “According to the testimony of the students and the teachers, the increase in performance is mainly possible because the students in programme are 100% happy, and they attend all the lessons without missing any. As well as this, most of the time they have been using to walk home for lunch, they are now using to study. We have heard testimonies from students who used to walk 3 hours for lunch, so they are now using the 3 hours to revise their lessons.”
Attendance has also increased from 67% at the start of the school year to 93% after a year receiving school meals.
The new school year began again in September this year. Once again there are 100 students enrolled on the School Feeding Programme. 58 are new and 42 others are existing from last year. The figures show the same situation for the new students enrolling on the programme. Their performance last year was between 42% and 64%, with the level of attendance at 65%, They were not happy last year and had no motivation to study. We hope there will be a great improvement this year.
Testimonies
Below are a number of testimonies from both students and teachers at BSS who have been impacted by the School Feeding Programme.
Divine, 15 years old
“I want to thank you very much. Before, I had to walk 2 hours to school then again home and back for lunch so I was walking for 8 hours each day. Thank you very much for supporting me – it is very different from before when things were very difficult. I used to think it was so hopeless and pointless to walk for 2 hours at a time, because I couldn’t do well at school as I would be late. I was hungry and often sleeping during school. I was physically in the class but mentally not following anything. Sometimes I was so tired from walking that I didn’t go back to school after walking home for lunch but today everything is going well.”
Emmanuel, Headmaster at BSS
“40 students are sponsored who are new to the programme. Before they were on the programme they did not have lunch. They come from vulnerable families and walk a long way to get to school. I want to talk about the importance of this programme and speak about how our national results have improved because of the programme. At the end of S3, 37 project students sat their Ordinary level exams and 100% passed and went on to boarding school, compared with less than 50% the year before of those not benefitting.
The programme also benefits the school reputation. The Rwanda Education Board look at the schools in the district and our school is now 9th out of 193 schools. To have a top ten position is very special. Thank you very much for your help.”
(Bisesero school does ordinary level up to S3 and then TVET (Technical, Vocational Education and Training) after that up to S6.)
Vestine, 20 years old
“I want to tell you personally that before we were on the feeding programme I had never passed an exam. Now I am never below 70%. In the past I was always hungry and could not study at school and went to sleep in the grass. Now I am very courageous in the class and can follow everything. Thank you. I am 20 years old and started school late. I am studying construction engineering in the TVET section and want to be a construction engineer.”
Birara Nursery Nutrition
Over the last year, Comfort International has supported 75 nursery children to receive nutrition support – a healthy breakfast and lunch – at Birara Nursery. The project has been extremely successful in helping young children to stay in nursery and move onto further education, so much so that more communities are getting involved and more children are in need of support. A small sister nursery of 35 children has been set up, closer to the communities where these children live, so that they don’t have to travel so far to Birara Nursery, as that nursery expands.
The children in this area remain very vulnerable to poverty and malnutrition. Some of the new children arriving at the nursery don’t have appropriate clothes, and so some of the teachers have helped provide uniforms for them. Having breakfast and lunch protects them from malnutrition and changes their entire lives, as well as that of their families and communities.
Emergency Feeding in the Democratic Republic of Congo
Sake Orphanage
When the Feeding Projects began three years ago, Comfort Congo was providing emergency feeding to orphans and malnourished children at Sake Orphanage, where partners Comfort Congo were working at full capacity to provide food for children at real risk of starvation. When fighting intensified in that area over the last year, many of the children fled and were dispersed into displacement camps at Goma. When the M23 took over Goma in the first half of this year, they destroyed the displacement camps and sent people back to their home areas, saying it was safe for them to go. For some this may have been true but for many, they either had no homes to go back to because they had been destroyed, or there was still insecurity and violence in their home area. Therefore, many of those people remained in Goma, staying in people’s homes or camping out in church compounds. For example, Bedadi, the Operations Manager at Comfort Congo, had 21 people in his small home for a time.
The children were relocated to an orphanage run by a Baptist church in Goma. Forty-seven of those children have now been able to go back to the orphanage in Sake and are being looked after full time. Seven children are still at the Baptist orphanage as they are too frightened to go back to Sake because of the memories of the war there. They are in the process of being integrated into Christian families.
The orphans being permanently cared for at the orphanage receive food every day, with porridge and bread or doughnuts in the morning and a meal in the afternoon, and Comfort Congo also provides a porridge service for around 600-700 malnourished, orphan and pygmy children twice a week. This service is a lifeline to children in the area, as Sake is in a very difficult situation with a lack of food and many children are tragically dying. Moise Kusimwa is the Comfort Congo nutritionist and regularly visits the orphanage to assist with the food service and provide advice and first aid for the children.
Despite the desperate situation being faced by our partners at Comfort Congo, they remain diligent in all they do and full of faith for provision and relief. Bedadi writes, “All this is possible thanks to Comfort International and its friends who give their money out of love to provide food and porridge to these vulnerable children. As it says the bible in 2 Corinthians 9: 8, ‘And God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance, so that you may always have enough of everything and may provide in abundance for every work.’”
Other Feeding Projects
Alongside the School Feeding Programme, Nursery Nutrition and Emergency Feeding in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Feeding Projects also provide vital support for many of our ongoing projects across central and eastern Africa where there is a need for extra feeding support for vulnerable children and families. These include Street Kids Rescue Projects, Children of Liberty (ex-child soldiers) and family support in South Sudan, one of the poorest countries in the world. Although many of these projects are supported by regular sponsorships, as the needs increase and more individuals come onto the projects, and as other costs such as education increase, the Feeding Projects allow us to make sure that everyone on our projects can receive regular, nutritious meals. Thank you for being part of such a vital project, which provides the foundation for so many other initiatives, making sure that children don’t need to worry about hunger but can concentrate on their present and future, mothers don’t need to worry about feeding their babies and families don’t need to go to bed hungry.
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 Central and Eastern Africa.