There is a very strong, simple link between meals in school and school attendance. If a hot meal is provided, children will come. If it is not, they will not.
That’s one of the many reasons why our high-nutrition rice meals are so effective – they keep children coming back to school, week after week.
But the schools supported by Feed The Hungry in Kiryandongo refugee camp, Uganda, were struggling. They had the food; the children came. But the kitchen buildings had never been built.
The cooks were preparing food over log fires in huge, hot pots, in the open air. They were vulnerable to accidents (both for the cooks and the children), struggled through bad weather and the process was physically demanding.
Sharing skills in a new context
RE-ACT (previously Team Rubicon UK) are an organisation made up of military veterans. They use skills honed over years of military service to respond to humanitarian situations across the globe – and they were more than happy to help.
Keen to share your team’s skills?
Over the course of four weeks, two waves of RE-ACT volunteers built 8 brick kitchens in 4 schools, complete with brick ovens.
These kitchens are not just a safer way to cook essential food for the school children. They are more fuel efficient, making them cheaper to run. Cooking in them is easier than cooking on outdoor fires. Risk is reduced, cooking time decreased and the children keep coming to school.
Your skills can make the world a better place
Skills sharing is a brilliant way for anyone to be a world changer. The value of your team’s skills is multiplied when it is shared with communities like those in Kiryandongo refugee settlement.
RE-ACT brought their practical engineering and building skills to share with the children at Kiryandongo. Your business may be full of people skilled in finance, logistics, education, IT and computing. Taking those skills out of the office and into communities that need them is great for your employees, great for your business reputation and – most importantly – great for the people you can help.