No child in Nepal shall be deprived of education because of hunger

Nepal is one of the developing countries in the world with a huge fraction of families surviving on much less than NRs. 100 (USD 3 dollar monthly) to spend per head. Not only in the remote villages, but also in urban and semi-urban areas of Nepal including the capital city Kathmandu, lower class families depend on daily labor wage for survival. As a consequence of economic backwardness and low income, these families are much below in terms of educational status too. Children from economically backward families are often enrolled in community schools in Nepal. These schools are low priced and run with government subsidies and are striving to compete with private schools despite poor infrastructures, insufficient teaching staff, and low budget. The daily wage laborers send their children to schools without lunch or tiffin. These children don’t get nutritious food at home either. Their healthy growth of body and mind is affected by hunger and malnourishment. School-aged children in community schools are susceptible to malnutrition. We often hear cases of children fainting in classrooms due to hunger and malnourishment as they have to stay in the classroom the whole day without food. Many children either run away from school during lunch break or stay at home supporting their parents in farms or household work because they get to eat.

Food for Life Nepal (FFLN) is a non-governmental, non-profit, non-religious organization working for the welfare of children in Nepal. Since its genesis in 2015 AD, FFLN has dynamically strived to address the escalating issue of classroom hunger in Nepal and enable access to school education – matters of national priority. Its journey began with feeding 18 school children in one of the schools in Budhanilkantha Municipality, Kathmandu, Nepal. It was only a matter of time before the humble beginnings of FFLN transformed the lives of marginalized children with good management, innovative technology, and smart engineering making its Mid-Day Meal (MDM) program the country’s one of the largest NGO-run school midday meal programs. Today, FFLN caters to 10000+ children every school day in Budhanilkantha Municipality and Tokha Municipality, Kathmandu from a centralized kitchen supported by the Embassy of Japan in Nepal. It is making rapid strides towards the vision that ‘No child in Nepal shall be deprived of education because of hunger.’

One of the reasons the community schools are behind private schools in terms of performance is due to the fact that the children enrolled here do not attend classes regularly. One of the influencing issues behind the discontinuity of school is hunger. When addressing the concept of illiteracy in Nepal one of the first things that come to our mind is hunger. 

Therefore, Food for Life Nepal has been trying to liberate the children from classroom hunger by providing them with nutritious meals prepared under the supervision of nutritionist to ensure the highest standards of health and hygiene for a balanced diet to meet the dietary requirements for better growth and development of the children both mentally and physically.