A Beacon of Hope: See How our Home-Grown School Meals programme transforms the Lives of Children in the Central African Republic!

Central African Republic (CAR) has been struggling for a long time. It has one of the lowest Human Development Index scores in the world. After years of conflict and violence, the country desperately needs help. Fortunately, World Vision has partnered with WFP since 2014 to provide emergency school meal programmes in six prefectures of CAR. The underlying objectives of the project are to increase school enrolment, attendance, and retention rates, especially for girls.

In 2019, school meals coverage in CAR was approximately 30 percent, covering both fragile and stable settings (WFP, 2020). World Vision has worked hard to provide healthy and nutritious school meals to more than 65,000 students to help the most vulnerable children access food and keep them in school.

In 2021, there was a shift from emergency school meal programmes towards more systems-strengthening approaches. World Vision has been supporting CAR’s smallholder farmers to increase their production and mobilizing community members to support the school meal programmes that benefit their children. The results of this transformative approach have been remarkable. Primary schools have seen an increase in the retention rate of pupils and a decrease in the dropout rate of girls.

World Vision's Home-Grown School Meals programmes are transformative because they work at several points in the food system. Working with smallholders to increase production helps to transform their lives, increase their incomes, and improve food availability. Providing School Meals addresses malnutrition directly, and has the added benefits of increasing school retention, protecting children and girls, and investing in the transformation of future generations.

The Home-Grown School Meals programme is a beacon of hope for the people of CAR. It is helping to transform their lives, increase their incomes, protect children and girls, and invest in the country's future generations.

By investing in transformative projects such as the Home-Grown School Meals programmes, you help us to provide much-needed aid to the people of CAR and help to create a brighter future. we can help to create a brighter future for the children of CAR.

by Alexandre A. Gassama, Communication and Advocacy Manager, World Vision Central African Republic