According to local leaders, since the inception of community meal provision, the feeding programme has had a significant impact on malnutrition among the children, especially where it was rampant during the 2006 – 2010 rainy season.
Community Based Child Centres
Establishment of CBCC’s in across the three regions have enabled the JCT to distribute meal provision effectively to the children.
Many of the children who attend these centers are orphans. The centers are a safe place for them to spend their day. The children stay until around 3.00pm and receive 2 meals: Likuni Phala in the morning and a maize and vegetable stew before they leave. Two meals are provided because their young age makes them more vulnerable to the effects of malnutrition.
The volunteers teach the children songs, rhymes, and introduce them to counting and the alphabet. The aim of this early introduction to education is to encourage later enrolment in primary school.
In some of the centers, children were were eating using their fingers as shown in the pictures.
With funding received, a remedy was provided on this unhygienic situation by procuring utensils such as spoons, plastic plates, basins, pots, buckets and children are no longer using their fingers.