The County Government of Bomet is providing two milk packets a week to each nursery school pupil to fight malnutrition and improve class attendance. The project is aimed at benefiting 54,000 children, both from public schools and homes for children with disabilities in the county. This initiative comes after the county registered a 36% malnutrition rate, a higher than the national rate of 26%. School dropout cases among pupils due to lack of food and high poverty rates also contributed to the initiation of the milk feeding project.
The county is currently relying on the Kenya Cooperative Creameries (KCC) to drop off the milk in selected wards where contracted bodabodas (motorbike taxis) collect the cartons and distribute them to schools and homes for children with disabilities. In addition, the initiative is targeted to provide job opportunities to members of the Bodaboda Association in the county. The county has a milk processing plant at Chebunyo in Chepalungu, as part of the feeding programme strategy designed to help local farmers produce their own milk for the Early Childhood Development Education centres. The initiative will progress to donating a packet of milk every day to each student once the processing plant picks up.
What initiative has your county taken to keep pupils in schools?