Food Brings Happiness to Schoolchildren

“A hungry man is an angry man”, they say, and Ajugboul has seen that firsthand.

The elderly woman lives in one of the remote villages surrounding our Wa site in Ghana, and used to quarrel with her two grandsons over not having enough food to eat. The boys were abandoned by their parents, and finding them enough to eat was a struggle for Ajugboul.

They were always stuck at home, not even enrolled in school. For the sake of Ajugboul and her boys, some kind of intervention was needed.

Around the same time, word of the Chalice Nutrition Program in school was spreading. When the boys caught wind of the news, it was clear a solution was in sight.

They enrolled in school, excited at the prospect of receiving a meal at lunchtime every day. The program uses school farms to grow vegetables for use in meals, which keeps it sustainable for the future. Community members fetch water from a borehole (a shaft in the ground to extract water), and the schools have created their own platform for cooking.

Before school feeding, most children were eating only one meal per day. They’re now getting at least two, and malnutrition is dropping. The students are better motivated to attend class, and performance has improved.

While her grandsons were once angry, Ajugboul can now say, “Food really brings happiness in a family.” Ajugboul is relieved to see the boys come home happy every day.

“She is most grateful to Chalice for bringing happiness to her life and the family,” site staff write.

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