School Feeding vs. Voodoo

Keeping these things in mind it might not very surprising that the enrolment rates of Tanzanian primary schools are quite low (often around 60 %). Luckily, WFP has a school feeding program which provides two school meals per day to every student.

However, involving communities in these kinds of programs is essential for success and sometimes harder than one would think. Let me illustrate this point. I told you how politics and elections can be a threat to development work in a very direct way. However, the elections also have their less direct effects on the work WFP does. I recently visited a primary school in the school feeding program and heard a story about a politician afraid to lose votes. He was scared that if the community would accept any help coming from outside his party, votes would be lost. So he told the people in the community that they should not let their children eat the food provided by WFP to the school, because the food was cursed with black magic and it would make the children unable to get babies… These kinds of stories are not uncommon, a large part of the (uneducated) Tanzanian population still believes in things as black magic and voodoo.

Fortunately after the elections and a lot of discussion this community accepted the help from WFP. This means that the children receive a bit of porridge every morning and some maize and beans in the afternoon. The result: children are no longer hungry in class, have longer attention spans and attendance rates increase up to somewhere between 90 and 100%. And don’t worry they’re still able to get babies...

If you want to know more about school feeding look here