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School Meals Explained In 2 Minutes
As part of its school feeding programme, WFP feeds around 20 million children in some 68 countries every year. Copyright:WFP/Rein Skullerud
Meet Adeyinka Badejo. Her job is to organise school meals programmes in places where many children don’t go to school because they don’t have enough to eat. “School meals work because they’re simple,” says Adeyinka. They help kids grow up healthy and keep them coming back to school. Watch video
ROME—No child should go to school hungry. It seems obvious and yet every year, 66 million children do just that.
“A hungry child is too hungry to concentrate or even too weak to walk to school,” explains Adeyinka. “Giving a child at least one nutritious meal a day at school improves their chances of being a healthy and productive adult.”
WFP is the biggest provider of school meals in the world, providing food for around 20 million children each year. These are simple meals usually consisting of rice and beans cooked with oil and salt or a warm cup of porridge.
Remarkably, filling one of the typical red cups used in WFP school feeding programmes only costs $0.25. “It’s a tiny amount of money, but a huge investment in the next generation,” Adeyinka said.
