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Boy Feeding

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WFPs School Feeding Program Helping Pastoral Ethiopian Girls

22/04/2010

WFPs SCHOOL FEEDING: HELPS ETHIOPIAN PASTORAL GIRLS ENROLL IN SCHOOL.

 

By: Ibrahim Rashid Hassan.

 

Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia has nine regional states, and Somali regional state is the second largest state after Oromia region. It borders Djibouti to the North, Somalia to East and North East, Kenya to the South and within Ethiopia it borders Oromia region to the West and Afar region in North-West. Somali region is administratively divided into nine administrative provinces with 52 districts, and has got a total population size of 4, 439,147, according to 2009 official population census.

 

According to the Regional Bureau of Education (BOE) in Jigjiga, the total numbers of students enrolled in primary and intermediary schools are 716,812 (523,105 boys, and 193, 707 girls) attending classes from grade one to grade eight. With a total a number of formal and non-formal primary and intermediary schools in the region reported to be 1,223 schools.

 

The region is the least developed and is chronically food insecure and during the recent past, due to climatic changes the region has witnessed recurrent droughts with unprecedented magnitude that has claimed huge number of livestock, in an area that is predominantly 80% pastoralist. Farmers whose farms are mostly rain fed have also been hugely affected by the droughts that directly led to crop failures. The result were increased malnutrition cases through out the region and the effect has put many families who lost their livestock herds into destitution and into the below poverty line.

 

There are intermingled myriads of problems affecting the region due to poor infrastructure and in-adequate social infrastructure coupled with occurrence of both natural and man-made hazards, and in absence of rehabilitation and recovery programs these has led to reduced resilience to droughts and floods.

 

Given the above set of condition and hardships, the Somali pastoral families residing in the rural areas of Somali Region state have not had the opportunity to enroll their children in Schools due to the absence and lack of schools at the rural area. Most schools are built and mostly found at the urban centers, making rural children out of reach for those schools.

 

In-addition many parents and household heads are not aware of the importance of education; illiteracy rate in Ethiopia is 64%. Most pastoral households prefer their children to take care of the animals while the girls are left at home to wash the dishes, cloths and cook for the entire family, other parents see their children as a helping hand to generate an additional income for the families.

 

According to educationist in the region student enrolment and attendance is very low during the two dry seasons of the year student drop out rates were extremely very high during the droughts, as the children did not have enough to eat at home in-order to attend school. Many will move with their families into the interior in search of a better pasture and water and mostly never to return back to school.

 

Ministry of Education (MoE) and World Food Programmee jointly started an initiative to increase school attendance rate of pastoralist children in the Somali Region of Ethiopia in the year 2000. By investing in the human capital through school meal, food for education and take home rations for girls, WFP aims to break poverty circle, reduce malnutrition rate and educate the girls with the long term plan of eradicating the scorch and the old tradition of Female Genital Mutilation/Cut (FGM) which is highly prevalent in Somali Region than any other regional state.

 

To at least minimize the negative impact of natural and manmade hazards on education, particularly, in regularizing attendance, minimizing drop-outs, promoting the quality of education and nutritional status of students at school level, the Ethiopian Government and WFP agreed that School Feeding Programme could be one of right important intervention in Somali region.

 

In this account, WFP and MOE have together endorsed the commencement of CHILD/FFE programme in the region. As a result, it was in 2000 when the programme was, in the first time, introduced in the region, as pilot, in 10 selected food insecure kebeles of Jigjiga zone. Following the provision of on-site meals and distribution of oil for Girls Initiative Oil (GIP) as a home take ration, the programme performance was appreciated and found successful. For instance, it was found that the enrolment rate, in assisted schools, was annually increased 5%, in average, for each sex group of male and female. In this regard, it was further expanded to more schools in Jigjiga and Shinile zones. Finally, the programme covered 82 schools in six zones of the region (Jigjiga, Shinile, Degahbour, Liban, Afder and Gode). Commencement of programme in zones helped community to understand the advantage of programme and requests of programme establishment from kebeles and woredas inundated BoE. In order to find solutions to the mounting complaints of communities, BoE pushed WFP to expand CHILD/FFE schools since programme started in the region, till WFP has finally succeeded to save and mobilize resources (funds) for more additional beneficiaries in the programme.

 

Afterwards, in response to inquiries about expansion of programme, WFP communicated with Somali Bureau of Education to officially submit programme expansion request through MoE for approval, BoE has accordingly requested an additional 222 schools to be included in the programme with total students of 36,297, representing all 52 woredas in the region of which has been endorsed by MoE and WFP.

 

The current approved number of beneficiary will make the total number of program beneficiaries in Somali Region 81,785. However, according to outcome of Assessment Missions in all nine zones of region, the total number of enrollment in schools assesses reported to be 50,148 with the exclusion of eight schools in Ferfer and Mustahil woredas and 2 schools in Gode woreda of Gode Zone. The assessment result indicates that the actual enrolment figure was 28% higher than planned.

 

Take home rations for girls and constant educational awareness campaigns conducted by WFP in the Somali Region of Ethiopia has started to bear fruits as more parents are taking their daughters to school, partly due to the incentives offered by WFP for girls to have take home rations of vegetable oil if they continue attending classes in the local schools and also because of the WFPs dynamic and protracted campaign on the importance of education, parents now understand that educating a girl child is an investment for her future and that of her family.

 

School feeding is also a very good theater for tackling the old tradition of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), by educating the girls the community is breaking the circle of FGM as educated mothers are more aware of the harmful effect of female genital mutilation and are less likely to repeat the ordeal of the cut on their daughters.

 

The long term objective of the program is to reduce the high illiteracy rate of the Somali pastoralists. In Ethiopia the total Adult literacy rate stood at 36% during the year 2003 to 2008, according to UNICEF country statistics. WFPs school meal programmes work towards achieving several Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The Programmee directly addresses the goal of reducing hunger by half and achieving universal primary education by the year 2015, and the increased number of schools under the School Feeding programme for Somali region having been increased 222 for the current year will go a long way in taking education closer to the thousands of school age children who could not attend school earlier due to poverty and hunger.

 

As well increasing the enrollment of girls at the local schools, the meals compart poverty and also reduce diseases by proving vital nourishment; the school meals act as a safety net for poor families and also keep children in school, studies show that it is more difficult for children to learn without adequate food nutrition.

 

The poor pastoral families are often forced to oblige to choose between sending their children to school or to herding their camels and cattle, and a daily school meal provides a strong incentive to send children and specifically the girls to school and keep them there.

 

The average attendance rate of WFP Assisted schools was 91.5% in 2009, which was above WFP's goal of 90%. The average drop-out rate nationwide is 11.25% for girls and 12.26% for boys as compared to rates of 9% for girls and 11% for boys in WFP-Assisted Schools

 

World Food Program implemented "Essential Package" activities in 2007 and is still on-going at more than 100 schools supported by WFPs school feeding program. The essential package consists of activities such as training, de-worming, making school gardens and health and nutritional education.

 

With increased number of girls enrolling at the local primary schools which are recipients of WFPs School Feeding Program, pastoral girls are assured of receiving free education and a strong future. According to many stakeholders of education in Ethiopia; School Feeding is a crucial tool in achieving the UN Millennium Development Goals and the government of Ethiopia's educational sector plan 2 aims of increasing primary school enrolment and promoting gender equality. 

 

 

 

 The Author is part-time freelance writer.

Email: gahnuug_2002@yahoo.com 

 

About the Author

Ibrahim Rashid Hassan

Freelance Writer.