“I want to be educated. This is the only way for a better life”
How World Food Programme (WFP) school feeding is fuelling children’s ambitions to succeed in South Sudan
On the dusty grounds of a primary school in Alek South, Warrap State, 500 km from the South Sudanese capital Juba, Rebecca Aliai, 12, plays volleyball with her friends. The children run, jump and frolic happily as they make the most of their school break.
“I want to be educated. This is the only way for a better life.”
Like children the world over, Rebecca and her friends love to play — especially during their free periods. And most especially after they have received a hot school meal to fuel their energy.
Education is life
They also love to learn, the main reason they are in school, in order to prepare themselves for a better life. “I study but also I have time to enjoy with my friends”, says Rebecca. “The school is the best part of my day. Education is life.”
Rebecca and her friends are pupils at Mathiang Primary School in Alek South. The school is one of 150 schools across South Sudan where WFP is providing school meals to children — with support from the European Commission.
Up to 75,000 school children in four former states of Northern Bahr el Ghazal, Western Bahr el Ghazal, Warrap and Eastern Equatoria receive a school meal daily while in some cases, girls take food home — as a family incentive to keep sending them to school.
An incentive to enroll children in schools
South Sudan has the highest proportion of out-of-school children in the world with 2.2 million children not enrolled in schools, partly due to shortages of food in their communities.
A daily school meal provides a strong incentive to send children to school and keep them there. It helps to increase school enrollment and attendance, decrease drop-out rates, and improve their cognitive abilities.
Parents confirm that their children are now attending school more regularly since the introduction of the feeding programme in schools. The meals children receive motivate them to attend school more regularly and to stay longer in in order to get their meals.
Feeding dreams
For Rebecca and her friends, school feeding and education are opportunities to build a better life for themselves.
“I want to be educated. This is the only way for a better life,” says Rebecca. “I would like to be a doctor when I grow up. I want to be able to help my community.”
School meals give children a fighting chance at life and a path out of the poverty trap.
It’s everyone’s business
For the school feeding to succeed, the community plays a huge role. Parents take turns to volunteer as cooks and in committees that help run activities.
“In the past, children were not attending school; but now that they have food they come and they can stay until afternoon,” says Ms. Bakita Adut, a volunteer cook at the Mathiang Primary School. “I work as a volunteer in the school because I want my children to continue with their education.”
The story of happy school children is similar at the Chukudum Primary School, Budi County, and several other schools in different states where pupils benefit from the school feeding programme.
Locally sourced food
The nutritious school meals, usually made from home-grown food sources such as grains and vegetables, are changing the face of primary education in South Sudan — for the better.
“Having food at school every day can mean not only better nutrition and health, but also increased access to and achievement in education,” says Matthew Hollingworth, WFP Country Director in South Sudan.
“School feeding serves not only to address hunger among school children, but to bring an end to isolation, to bring communities together, to foster unity and promote equity across South Sudan and to protect this country’s greatest assets, its children.”
