Chapter five - article one
A Virtuous Cycle
of Nutrition and
Education
In an exclusive interview with the founder of Food for Education and the strategic advisor of Cartier Philanthropy, 365 magazine explores the success of the largest school meal program in Africa.
Pascale de La Frégonnière
Pascale de La Frégonnière
Pascale de La Frégonnière
Wawira Njiru and Pascale de la Frégonnière have combined their efforts to establish a sustainable way of providing high-quality, nutritious meals to schoolchildren. It all started in 2012, when Wawira Njiru, a young student in nutrition and food sciences, raised the capital to set up her non-profit organization, a tiny, corrugated iron structure in her hometown Ruiri, about 10 miles from Nairobi.Wawira Njiru
Wawira Njiru
Since then, it has grown 14-fold and provides meals to a quarter of the children enrolled in the city’s public schools, the majority of whom come from the city’s poorest neighborhoods. This tremendous success saw her elected Kenyan personality of the year 2021 by the United Nations and earned her the 2022 Global Icon Award from The World’s 50 Best Restaurants. Food for Education is one of 58 partner organizations supported by Cartier Philanthropy.
“Food for Education is on a mission to make school feeding programs the norm across Africa by designing a blueprint, putting it into practice and then supporting its replication.”
What made Cartier Philanthropy decide to support Food for Education?
Pascale de la Frégonnière:
Every day, millions of children around the world go to school on an empty stomach. Hunger is detrimental to their concentration and impairs their ability to learn. Hungry kids are also more likely to miss school because of illness, and more likely to suffer from depression and anxiety. Effectively and locally managed school meal programs have many proven benefits: not only do they provide pupils with adequate nutrition, but they also improve their school attendance and educational outcomes. Considering the urgency of the problem, our priority is to support programs that are proven to work, are cost-effective and can be replicated and expanded. That’s why we’re funding Food for Education, which is making school meals available to thousands of children in Kenya.
What are the challenges that Food for Education is addressing in Kenya and what is the organization’s mission?
Wawira Njiru:
Approximately 90% of the continent’s children do not have access to the minimum acceptable level of nutrition and this crisis is particularly acute in Kenya, where one in four children under 5’s development is stunted. Undernutrition and hunger affect children’s physical, cognitive and social-emotional development.
What are your ambitions for the future?
Wawira Njiru:
Since its creation, Food for Education has grown from serving 1 million meals a year to over 1 million meals a month and is now feeding nearly 300,000 children every day. Beyond addressing childhood hunger, we’re seeing encouraging results in educational outcomes too, with increased enrollment and attendance in the primary schools we serve. We have the ambitious goal of serving 1 million children per day by 2027.
How does this resonate with Cartier Philanthropy’s strategy?
Pascale de la Frégonnière
As a foundation, we have a responsibility to make a positive change to people’s lives, if we are to tackle some of the world’s most complex social challenges. Our strategy is therefore to fund organizations that have come up with solutions proven to be effective and have an ambition to expand them and reach as many people as possible. Food for Education’s numbers could not be more convincing: they are providing nutritious meals for 300,000 children per day at a cost of 30 cents each. That’s remarkable! Counties in Kenya have asked for Food for Education to start operating in their region because they understand the benefits of school meals. Parents are moving their kids to schools where school meals are available. This is creating a virtuous cycle.
How can private-sector donors best support your goals?
Wawira Njiru:
Food for Education wants to expand so as to reach as many children as fast as is humanly possible. Our vision is of a Kenya where all 10 million children in state primary schools receive a daily, affordable, nutritious school meal. The private sector and donors can really support this vision by providing long-term, flexible funding so we can accelerate our impact and reach our solution sustainably. We run Food for Education like a business, and private sector expertise on expanding it is helpful as we build the blueprint for feeding school children from scratch.
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