Moshi, TZ – Meals provision at Maendeleo primary school is a key factor for student enrollment – Apr 2025

When our partner Tupendane first started a feeding program at Maendeleo Primary School the need was to feed about 200 children, this was over ten years ago when we found that the children were not fed at school. The school has now grown to around 900 students.

Tupendane and its funding partners were able to introduce the Maendeleo Primary School community to a school feeding program, which provided free breakfast to the children during the early stages. Later, Tupendane improved the program to be a more sustainable one by changing the design to the current Grow-own-Breakfast (GOB), which encourages the children, teachers and parents to own and run the program. The design lets them do most of the work, with assistance from Tupendane when needed.

Since the breakfast has been available for all the school children every school day, Tupendane has noticed a remarkable increase in the children enrolling each year, which indicates that this program has benefited not just the school children who attended school when the program started, but also the street children who were not previously coming to school because of hunger.

While the children are now enjoying these excellent benefits, the number of enrolling children at Maendeleo Primary School is more than 110 children this year. This number exceeds the feeding capacity of the existing school farm area, so there is a need to expand the school vegetable and banana tree gardens.

A collaboration of the school’s parents, teachers and children, along with Tupendane, funding partners, and a visiting UK school will invest funds and volunteer labor to start this expansion in order to meet the sustainability needs of the school farm.