Climate-smart school meals change the flavor of Kenya’s future

In a dusty school yard in Kajiado County, south of Nairobi, Kenya, a sense of excitement fills the air as the lunch bell rings at GK Athi River Primary School. Hundreds of children line up eagerly, clutching plastic containers, ready to receive what for many is the only hot meal they will eat that day. On the menu: ugali corn porridge made from fortified cereals, sorghum and beans with a high iron content.

“On one of my many visits to Athi River School, I asked Maria, a 10-year-old girl, what she thought of the sorghum and bean flour, and she said she liked the taste,” says Betty Kibaara, Director of the Initiative of Food at the Rockefeller Foundation, Africa Region Office.

Mary’s experience is just one of many that highlight the impact of school meals in Kenya. For more than a decade, the Cup of Water program has been on a mission to provide nutritious meals to Kenya’s most vulnerable children, and with the launch of the National School Feeding Coalition in October 2024, the promise of one meal a day will be extended soon to the students. all over the country.

For Francis Otieno Amonde, the founder of Cup of Water, the journey began in 2011 in a classroom at Nyatwere Primary School in Homa Bay County, where his mother, Mrs. Berrit Kalolo Amonde was a teacher. “I remember the children in my mother’s class – so many of them looked skinny and malnourished,” he recalls.

Amonde started with what he could afford – fortified porridge, known as “water” in Kiswahili. “In the beginning, I was feeding around 100 pre-school children from my own pocket,” he recalls.

Over the years, Cup of Water expanded its reach, and in 2023, a game-changing moment came when the Rockefeller Foundation awarded the program a grant to pilot a comprehensive school meals initiative at GK Athi River Elementary School. This marked the first time the program expanded beyond porridge to offer hot lunches, a major milestone in its journey.

“From an African perspective, school meals are not just nice foods. This is the only hot meal that about 20% of children in Kenya will receive,” says William Asiko, Vice President of the Rockefeller Foundation’s Africa Regional Office.

The importance of these meals has been shown to extend beyond nutrition and health – directly affecting school attendance, especially for girls, who are often pulled from school to help with household chores when food is scarce. This creates “a ripple effect that strengthens communities,” Asiko explains.

In regions like Kajiado District, where GK Athi River Primary School is located, climate change has worsened food insecurity. Prolonged droughts have negatively affected agricultural productivity and decimated livestock, forcing families to make heartbreaking decisions such as withdrawing children from school or marrying off girls to help survive.

By supporting local farmers and using climate-smart practices, school meals are also helping to build more resilient communities and economies.

With the pilot program in Athi River, over 79,000 hot lunches have been served since October 2023, reaching 800 students each day. The program has also created jobs, employing members of the local community as cooks and servers, making it a boon to the children and their communities.

“Expanding school feeding programs in ways that promote the procurement of nutritious food will make those children healthier, even as it catalyzes larger changes in the food system,” says Roy Steiner, Vice President of High for the Rockefeller Foundation’s Food Initiative.

In addition to feeding children and creating jobs, the pilot is a first step in transforming the way Kenyans eat and think about food from a young age. Ugali, a staple dish in Kenya, is often made with refined maize flour, which removes the most nutritious parts of the grain. However, the program is now using whole grain flour, which retains more nutrients and reduces waste.

“If you serve whole grain flour, it’s healthier and you save 20% of the crop,” Asiko explains. “Early exposure to whole grains in schools can shape children’s preferences, encouraging healthier choices as they grow.”

The program’s focus on whole grains is part of a larger movement to make school meals not only more nutritious, but also sustainable. By working with local farmers to grow crops like high-iron beans and sorghum—both resilient to climate change—the program is helping to create a sustainable supply chain that benefits students and small farmers.

“If you say we’re going to insist that as a government, we’re only going to procure whole grains, fortified beans, or whole grain flour for school meals, you start to drive systems change in terms of what farmers are going to produce.” explains Asiko. “This approach helps farmers grow crops that are better for the environment while ensuring children get the nutrition they need.”

The school meal program also presents an opportunity to foster sustainable solutions. A key aspect of this is the introduction of clean cooking technologies. With the Rockefeller grant, Cup of Water has installed clean energy solutions such as briquettes at Athi River Elementary School. These innovations are not only more environmentally friendly, but also reduce the health risks associated with traditional cooking methods, which often rely on firewood and emit noxious smoke.

The Rockefeller grant has enabled further support to test several different options, with the objective of creating scalable and replicable solutions for school feeding programs across the Athi River. These have included menu engineering, a school garden and an orchard, which support the programme.

“The grant from the Rockefeller Foundation has been transformative,” says Amonde. “For the first time, we’re offering lunch menus, not just porridge, and that’s making a difference. Kids are now eating sorghum and beans, high-iron beans, even rice. We’ve also introduced clean cooking technology to done the process is more stable”.

The launch of the Kenya Scale Up Plan in October 2024 represents another transformative step towards universal school meals in Kenya. With support from the Rockefeller Foundation and the United Nations World Food Program (WFP), the initiative aims to provide hot, nutritious meals to over 10 million children by 2030, making a monumental difference in the fight against hunger and educational inequality.

The program also aims to change attitudes and behaviors towards nutritious food, inspiring systems change, while also contributing to the country’s climate goals.

“A planet-friendly approach to school meals will be at the heart of the scale and focus of the coalition,” says Ministry of Education Cabinet Secretary Julius Migos Ogamba.

“This is because we are aware of the environmental impact of growing this program, but also of its transformative power to help farmers and communities adapt to climate change if we get it right; for example, through climate-smart agriculture and shifting from the current 90% use of firewood to cleaner cooking sources.”

The Organization of African First Ladies for Development (OAFLAD) has played an important role in driving this growth and has played a key role in the advocacy efforts of the Rockefeller Foundation.

“In every country where we’ve engaged a first lady for school meals, we’ve seen the commitment from the government increase,” Asiko explains of Rockefeller’s engagement with African first ladies. “In Kenya, for example, they have increased the number of children using meals from 1.2 million in 2021 to 2.6 million to date. The involvement of first ladies is definitely something quite powerful.”

Kenya’s First Lady, Her Excellency Rachel Ruto, is a vocal advocate for school feeding programs and highlighted their transformative power at the Rockefeller Foundation-OAFLAD Roundtable on the Power of School Meals to Advance Education Outcomes, on the outskirts of the 79th United Nations General Assembly.

“School meals are a game changer for student focus and engagement in the classroom. “Research shows that access to nutritious meals not only increases cognitive function, but also increases academic performance, making school a more effective learning environment,” she says. “A plate of food is power in the hands of a child, giving them the power to shape their future through education.”

Kenya’s school feeding initiative is a model for the world. Combining food, education and climate resilience, the program is tackling some of the most pressing challenges facing the country and the planet. As the National School Food Coalition works to scale these efforts, the program’s holistic approach provides a roadmap for other nations seeking to improve food security and environmental sustainability.

“Kenya’s effort to scale up and implement our climate ambitions in school meals is something we felt we needed to reach all children with climate-smart school meals by 2030,” said Kenya’s Minister of Environment and Forestry. , Mrs. Rosalinda Soipan Tuya at Nourishing the planet, supporting the upcoming event organized by the School Food Coalition at COP28 in Dubai.

A plate of food is more than a meal – it’s a vehicle for change.

As Betty Kibaara says, “We owe the children of Africa the opportunity to experience indigenous foods while also providing a market structured by small farmers who are growing resilient crops.”

With continued support from the Kenyan government, the Rockefeller Foundation, and NGOs like Cup of Water, the vision of universal, climate-smart school meals is on the horizon—providing a brighter, healthier future for millions of children in the whole of Kenya.