School Lunch Program

Description

The Challenge

In Zambia, 1.7 million people, or 18% of the population experience severe food insecurity.  A tangible sign of this is about 40% of children under five have stunted growth.

Most of the rural schools do not have the funds to provide students with a balanced lunch (the government will generally provide schools with just corn), and the students do not bring their own lunches. Therefore, many of the students only eat one or two meals a day. Surveys have shown that one of the reasons for poor attendance at Schools in Zambia is children’s hunger.

The Agripreneur Solution

We have come up with a short-term, mid-term and long-term solution. For the short-term, we are providing selected Schools with free, high quality seeds so the students can grow vegetables for consumption and/or sale. For the medium term, we are providing fruit and moringa tree seedlings (the tree has very nutritious, edible high protein leaves) in order to provide students with a balanced, nutritious meal.  Finally, we provide the school with timber seedlings (such as pine or eucalyptus) which can be very profitable in the long term (7 years for eucalyptus and 24 years for pine), allowing the Schools to use the funds from the sale of the timber to set up a sustainable endowment fund.

As part of the program, we provide training to the teachers so that they, in turn, can train students in organic farming methods, tree nurseries, etc., and we provide the Schools with technical advice through a network of local agriculture experts.

The Numbers

An example of the School Lunch program cost per School (assuming a 1/8 hectare garden) is set forth below:

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Notes:

1. At an exchange rate of 18.2 Kwacha to 1USD
2. Students will provide the labour to plant and maintain the gardens and trees.
3. Such as hoes, shovels and buckets.

Required Donation to Fund School Lunch Program

$88 USD