the power of food
The price of food in Rwanda has doubled in only a few years! Many families in Rwanda struggle to find enough food to eat consistently because of sheer poverty, land scarcity, or drought conditions. Africa New Life’s school lunch program is changing lives one meal at a time by serving daily nourishing meals to students at the schools they manage. Their goal is to see that all students receive healthy lunches that can keep them growing and learning regardless of what’s available at home!
Regular, nutritious food makes hope tangible for students in Rwanda living in poverty. It’s hard to learn on an empty stomach, but a full stomach allows young people to excel in school, grow, and thrive. Africa New Life provides the school lunch programs in three schools through the Food & Care Program. In addition, the Food & Care Program annually supports 50 students in the Dream Kids Tutoring Program. Participating students benefit from a year of after-school academic support, as well as encouragement to develop a love for learning and desire to finish school well.
By investing in their nutrition and education, you’re helping to break the cycle of poverty and give these students a brighter future. It’s wonderful to see how organizations like Africa New Life are making a tangible difference.
Kayitesi Cynthia
Kageyo Student
At 13 years old, Kayitesi Cynthia has a kind smile and gentle eyes that speak of experience and maturity beyond her years. When she laughs, the child reappears for a moment in her face. One of three siblings, Cynthia is a student in grade 5 who lives at home in the community of Kageyo. Her family, like many Kageyo families, faces deep poverty in an area where food is scarce, droughts are too frequent, and consistent work is hard to find.
“My parents don’t have sustainable jobs to be able to feed us. Like many of us, me and my siblings survive on Africa New Life meals, the meals we get here at school.”At Rwisirabo Public Primary School, given to Africa New Life by the Rwandan government to manage in 2013, nutritious lunches are served each day for students like Cynthia. Ingredients such as rice, beans, maize (corn) porridge, greens, vitamins, and occasionally chicken offer these young people the opportunity to feel physically whole and mentally alert. For too many students, the warm school lunch is the only meal they’ll get all day.
“When we get home there is not much or nothing to eat. So we sleep and wait for tomorrow to come back to school and get another lunch.”
For Cynthia and so many of her classmates, food provides not only survival but also opportunity. With a nutritious meal in their bodies, the education they’re at school to receive can start to mean something. With the physical stamina to concentrate, they can learn and equip themselves for a better future, a future free of hunger, not dependent on local weather or agricultural conditions, not tied to whether there’s a meal for the day and where it will come from.
“Without food I wouldn’t be able to study or focus on anything. In my classes before lunch, sometimes I doze off because I didn’t get food the night before or in the morning. My class after lunch is so good because I am able to focus and learn so many things.”
Like so many children in Rwanda, Cynthia goes to bed hungry far too often, but the knowledge that there will be food for tomorrow gives her hope for today.
Source: https://www.africanewlife.org/food/#kayitesi