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Tendai Rupapa Senior Reporter
The nationwide school feeding programme being rolled out by First Lady Auxillia Mnangagwa through her Angel of Hope Foundation is expected to reduce the number of children pulling out of school owing to hunger and malnutrition.
Drought experienced over the last two farming seasons has exposed many families to food insecurity, amid indications that a sizeable number of children are facing malnutrition and stunting challenges.
Equally affected are schoolchildren mostly in rural communities who endure long distances to attend school usually on empty stomachs, which has contributed to a high dropout rate.
However, this narrative is being addressed through school feeding programmes introduced by the First Lady that are targeted at addressing poor school performance due to malnutrition and hunger.
Pupils will be served healthy porridge before starting lessons and the initiative is one of the responsive strategies cushioning communities against the challenges of hunger.
The feeding scheme by the First Lady is complementing Government efforts to enhance retention and the performance of pupils.
“The Government is doing what it can, but as a mother I have come in to play my part through the feeding programme,” she said.
“All I am doing is for the national good and we are going to feed all children across the political divide.
“As a mother, I am not selective and all my programmes are non-partisan as I want everyone to benefit. We are working with a number of partners to ensure we help all children in the country.”
The First Lady said her thrust was not to compete with the Government, but to enhance children’s access to food and nutrition across all corners of the country.
Her quest to provide food for all children comes at a time when she has urged Zimbabweans to desist from child marriages and empower the girl child with education.
The future of children, she said, was anchored on the early foundation they get from their parents from a tender age up to adulthood.
Amai Mnangagwa said it was important to provide equal opportunities to children across all genders and encourage them to stay off drugs and substance abuse.
Her quest to empower children through education has resulted in her foundation awarding scholarships to children in various communities.
Already, this year nearly 200 pupils from Seke and Zvimba rural districts have benefited from her scholarship programme.
The foundation identified 109 pupils at Maypark Primary, which is situated along Old Mazowe Road and 86 others at Simukai Primary School in Seke.
Angel of Hope Foundation paid school fees for all the pupils at these schools for the whole year.
Amai Mnangagwa, through her foundation, is assessing the needs of these less privileged pupils with a view to meeting some of their requirements.
Some pupils from the Doma community in Kanyemba in Mashonaland Central are beneficiaries of Angel of Hope Foundation’s scholarship programme.
The scholarships, the First Lady emphasised, sought to stem the surge in child marriages and ensure the girl child had access to education.
The First Lady’s intervention comes at a time when most underprivileged families marry-off daughters of school-going age after failing to cater for their education, exposing them to serious health challenges and abuse.
Peter Tanyanyiwa
Online Reporter