They take School Dinners very seriously as it is often the only meal the children will get a day. They will have rice and beans, vegetables such as cabbage and ugali which is like thick porridge and made from ground maize or cornmeal.
Even though they live close to the sea in a rich agricultural area the families do not have enough money to buy anything other than the very basic essentials and the children rarely have meat or fish which means their diet is poor and their health suffers.
The school has now introduced milk for the children and even though this is subsidised by the dairy it is another cost the school is trying to meet. For some children this is not enough and Harrison, the Head of the school is looking at the costs and viability of introducing vitamins for some of the children.
In the Leprosy village of Tumbe we found a young girl who was so ill because of her poor diet that we have paid for her to receive six months of milk and vitamins.
We found two children who were living with some of the teachers during term time as the parents cannot afford to feed them. The mother of one of the children is anaemic and needs a blood transfusion but at a cost of £40 this is impossible for her. We are helping her.
