The First Lady Rachel Ruto has launched the ‘Feed One End Hunger’ pilot programme in Migori County to address hunger and boost the nutritional value of the primary school-going pupils.
Rachel, who spoke during the launch of the School Milk Feeding programme, aimed at helping pupils of Bondo Kosiemo Primary School in Nyatike West Sub County fight hunger, said that the programme will help children concentrate on their learning.
“It is not easy to teach pupils who are hungry, and that’s why the milk feeding programme under the initiative ‘Feed one-end hunger,’ aims at retaining pupils in school,” said Rachel.
The First Lady called upon more well-wishers to join the initiative so as to serve more school-going children across the nation.
According to Rachel, the milk feeding programme is currently benefiting 2.5 million children across the nation, with more than 7.5 million still missing from the school milk feeding programme.
The government initiative aims to ensure that more than 10 million school-going children are included in the meal programme by 2030.
She added that education is the surest foundation that the Kenyan children need to excel in life and that no child should drop out of school because of hunger.
Mama Rachel also encouraged schools to embrace kitchen gardening to improve food security and add nutrition value to students in schools.
She stressed that the kitchen gardening initiative will be targeting 2000 schools to improve food production, adding that already 500 schools have food kitchen gardens, with the intentions of tripling it by the end of 2025.
Apart from starting the school milk programme at the Bondo Kosiemo Primary school, the First Lady also established a two-fruit garden to boost food nutrition in the school and serve as a platform for practical lesson garden for the competency-based curriculum (CBC) learners.
“I want to ask parents to allow their young ones to implement the kitchen and fruit gardening initiatives in homes to boost food security,” she explained.
Rachel emphasised the need for every Kenyan to take a step to help in the fight against hunger, noting that if each individual could feed one hungry person, the nation could solve the prevailing hunger issues.
Social Protection Principal Secretary Joseph Motari, who accompanied the First Lady, said that already 13,000 students from Migori have benefitted from Sh325 million bursary under the Inua Jamii programme.
Motari also disclosed that 439 local students have also benefited from Sh5 million Presidential Secondary School Bursary (PSSB) meant to empower the Kenyan child in accessing their basic education rights.
The PS also affirmed that they will be championing for the Nyatike Economic Inclusion Programme to empower the residents of Nyatike Sub County.
At the same time, Nyatike Member of Parliament Tom Odege affirmed that the national government would be building a market in Sori before June this year to boost the social and economic activities in the Semi-Arid region.
“As we are fighting hunger, we also want to give our people a good working environment to help them generate income,” he said.
Odege also confirmed that he would be fighting for hardship allowance for public officers working in Nyatike, an area that is categorized as a semi-arid area.
By Makokha Khaoya
