Launched in 2016 to complement the Government of Ghana’s school feeding program, the LunchBox School Feeding Program remains one of our popular and successful initiatives.
Our goal, which remains unchanged to this day, is to provide free, daily, and nutritious meals to school children throughout the academic year, with a particular focus on those in low-income communities.
By doing this, we hope to improve students’ health, boost school attendance and ultimately contribute to their overall well-being and academic success. To date, LunchBox, which is a private sector-led initiative has fed more than 4,000 school children in 25 public and private schools across five regions of Ghana: Greater Accra, Eastern, Ashanti, Central, and Volta.
The number of beneficiary schools is more than double the initial number we started with.
Uniqueness
What sets our LunchBox apart from other feeding programs is its collaborative nature. We actively involve the mothers of the pupils in the beneficiary schools in the food preparation process. We then offer these select mothers periodic training in food handling and recipe generation and empower them to evolve into caterers.
These ‘mothers-turned-caterers’ are then compensated for preparing nutritious meals for the children. To ensure sustainability, we go a step further by establishing kitchens directly within the schools. This strategic move not only guarantees that our model is self-sustaining but also extends the benefits to both the pupils and their families.
The Bigger Goal
- Continue to supply one hot meal a day to children in deprived schools that are currently not covered by the government’s school feeding program.
- Support deprived schools to set up and run their own school feeding initiatives managed by school authorities.
- Establish kitchens in deprived schools across Ghana to ensure safe and hygienic environments for meal preparation.
- Provide support for unemployed mothers to have a means of livelihood by working as trained caterers.
- Mobilize private sector support towards improving school meals across Ghana.
