As the National Treasury's withdrawal of funds for the school feeding programme causes anxiety among parents, those with learners in the Nyali subcounty have nothing to worry about.
MP Mohammed Ali assured them that his special feeding programme will go on as usual.
“I was the pioneer of the programme in Nyali. Our children will continue eating in school. Parents should not worry. In Nyali, we will go on with the feeding programme,” Ali told the Star on phone on Thursday.
The National Treasury has proposed to scrap the feeding programme, which costs about Sh4.9 billion.
This sparked uproar among MPs and parents across the country who expressed fear that the move would affect 4.5 million learners.
Basic Education PS Belio Kipsang has pleaded with MPs to allcate funds for the feeding programme in schools, saying should that not be the case, over 4.5 million learners would be at risk of dropping out.
The programme was meant to relief parents of the burden of lunch money for their children, help retain the learners in school and improve their health.
On Thursday, Ali said: “We saw a rapid increase in enrolment in schools and better retention. We will ensure this continues.”
The programme, which started in 2021, targets all public primary school children in Nyali constituency.
At least 20,000 learners in public primary schools benefit.
At first, parents were required to pay only Sh15 per day for their children to have lunch in school, translating to Sh75 a week.
A decent meal normally would cost at least Sh50 a day in eateries. This translates to about Sh250 a week for parents who opt to have their children eat in kiosks.
However, this would waste time for the learners who sometimes would come back for afternoon lessons late.
After a successful piloting of the programme at Khadija Primary School, it spread to all other public primary schools in the subcounty.
Organisations were impressed and wanted to partner with the Nyali NG-CDF to augment it.
Food4Education, an NGO with a similar feeding programme, came in to partner with the Mombasa county government and the Nyali NG-CDF.
Governor Abdulswamad Nassir and the organisation’s founder and CEO Wawira Njeru launched the programme in November 2022 with a Sh100 million kitchen established at the Pwani School for the Mentally Handicapped.
This kitchen, the largest of all the eight kitchens established in five counties for the programme, serves Nyali and Kisauni subcounties.
Nassir pledged to subsidise the lunch fee so that parents pay Sh10 instead of the Sh15 per day.
Njeru, who was inspired to start the programme while still at university in Australia where she was studying nutrition and food sciences, called on the government to partner with organisations to feed children in schools.
“It is important for children to have access to meals. We would like to take the project to all sub-counties across the 47 counties. Therefore there is a need for government to come in and help because we do not have the ability to feed children in the whole country,” she said.
“The national and county governments should work with partners so that more children get food.”