The pupils of Sibassor school in southern Senegal find WFP's breakfasts and hot lunches not only fill their stomachs but also allow the girls an education and helps build community spirit in their village.

Dakar, February 20 - Ten-year-old Ndeye Ndiaye breaks into a smile when she says she is learning to read. Her neatly braided hair and blue dress form a colourful contrast to the dusty backdrop of her village of Sibassor in the arid Kaolack region of Senegal.

Ndeye is one of 416 primary school students at the Sibassor school who eat a hot breakfast and lunch provided by WFP.

When she was primary school age, she didn't attend classes however, but spent her days helping her mother with household tasks. Her parents needed her at home, and did not have the means to educate her.

But with assistance from the community, including the school in Sibassor which provided her books, Ndeye started primary school in October 2003.

WINNING OVER PARENTS

If there is nothing in a child's stomach, he can't do anything
Moussa Mbodje, president, Sibassor School PTA

Mahécor Faye, the school director in Sibassor, says Ndeye's parents needed persuading to send their daughter to school.

The fact that she would receive daily meals there was a major draw. "Parents are realizing more and more that school feeding helps them save money, and they are winning out in the end," he says.

WFP provides nutritious meals to children in some of the poorest regions of the world, as a simple but concrete way to give them a chance to learn and thrive.

At a cost of US$34 per child per year, the school feeding program helps poor families get past the obstacles that all-too-often prevent them from sending their children to school.

Poverty and poor nutrition - widely marked by iodine deficiency and iron deficiency anaemia - are particularly troublesome in southern Senegal, where WFP concentrates its activities.

With a decline in the economy in the 1990s, the nutritional status of people in the poorest regions of Senegal began to decline as well. Weak agricultural production and a harsh climate exacerbate the problem, particularly in the arid rural areas in the interior of the country.

POOR VILLAGE

The people of Sibassor are subsistence farmers - struggling to grow enough corn, peanuts, millet and beans to feed their families.

"We're in a village where families are very poor," says Moussa Mbodje, the president of the school parents' association.

"A farmer who doesn't have a good harvest can't even guarantee the well-being of his own family." He adds, "If there is nothing in a child's stomach, he can't do anything."

In Senegal, WFP currently provides meals for 115,000 students in the regions of Kaolack, Fatick and Tambacounda. Beginning in January 2005, WFP expects to feed an additional 120,000 students in 350 schools in the southern Casamance region.

The top donors to school feeding in Senegal are Canada, Japan, Italy and the international mail, express and logistics company TPG/TNT.

Senegal is one of the nine Sahel countries where WFP is providing school meals to 674,000 students. This represents less than 10 percent of the 7 million students enrolled in school in the region. WFP is collaborating with the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) to expand school feeding in the Sahel.

GRAND FETE

Lunch hour preparation at the Sibassor primary school resembles preparations for a grand fête.

The lunch team bustle about the schoolyard, the older girls serving up water and supervising the younger children in razor-straight lines to sit down for the mid-day meal of steaming rice, peas and sauce, and then to wash their own plates afterwards.

The older students clean the schoolyard and the food warehouse and clean the cooking bowls and utensils. They also work on a community garden together.

SPIRIT OF SOLIDARITY

This kind of cooperation is reflected in a number of activities stemming from school feeding in Sibassor.

A real spirit of solidarity has emerged from WFP's intervention here, Mbodje says. There are community gardens, where students and their parents work together, growing vegetables to be used for school meals.

Parents contribute in ways such as cooking the meals or providing wood for cooking. And for those parents who cannot afford to contribute the required 300 francs CFA (about 60 cents) per month for condiments and fish, other families chip in and pay it for them, Mbodje explains.

The community participation in Sibassor represents an integral part of the school feeding program, according to WFP representative in Senegal, Richard Verbeeck. "It's indispensable. We know that if parents are not involved right from the beginning, there is no way school feeding will be sustainable."

Marie-Hélène Veronique Mendy, 13, with huge brown eyes shining under a stylish felt hat, is one of the helpers at the school. "A girl with an education can have a good future," she says."
She can work and she knows how to save money."

Ndeye agree. "I want to work." Why? "So I can come back and help my parents and my village, so other children don't have to miss out on going to school."