The Governor of Nairobi, Johnson Sakaja has noted that the ‘Dishi na County’ school feeding program has helped increase the number of children going to school.
Speaking during an interview with the press on Friday morning 1 September, Sakaja said that the schools have been recording a lot of absentee children cases but now that the feeding program has given the children another chance to go back to school.
“When we started Dagoretti South, the registration of children in the program went up by 150%. Those children were school dropouts now they stood themselves having the courage and motivation to face the school environment. It was not a way to attract them to go back to school but an inspiration for them to continue with their careers,” Sakaja said.
The UDA governor also made it clear that the program has diminished stress for parents to a great extent.
“You find that a hustler parent goes to his casual work every day but at the end of the day he got nothing but he knows that whether he gets it or not, his child must eat, back then Parents were complaining because they had a burden but since this program Introduce in school it reduces a lot of stress to the parents and people enjoy it,” he said.
In addition, he said that the ‘Dishi na County’ nutrition program has given employment to about 1,500 parents from Nairobi county.
“It has created jobs for drivers, cooks, those who distribute food and clean,” he said.
He noted that parents being employed in the kitchen to cook for their children is a good move as they are more careful while preparing it so that children don’t get food poison. He also urged that initially they were aiming to provide food to 250,000 children in Nairobi but based on the response to enrollment in the program, they have been motivated to increase the target to 350,000 children.
The county head revealed that they have already completed the construction of several kitchens in some areas of Nairobi which are already serving more than 80,000 children. He said together with their partners, they aim to build about 14 kitchens.
