From Hunger to Hope: The Impact of School Meals on Namjo's Future
A smiling Najmo in class. Najmo Farah Abdi, a 7th-grade student at Haraf School in Somaliland, lives in Haraf Village just outside Hargeisa. She comes from a family of nine children. Her parents, former farmers, lost their income after a prolonged drought, making it difficult to support the family. Najmo walks an hour to school every morning. She usually eats a light breakfast at home—an omelet and tea—but often arrives at school hungry. “Sometimes I feel hungry before school even starts,” she says. Hunger made it hard for her to concentrate in class, and by the time she returned home and went to Quranic madrassa, she was too tired to focus. Her health began to suffer. After collapsing one day, Najmo was taken to the hospital, where she was diagnosed with malnutrition. “It was heartbreaking. We couldn’t afford better food,” says her mother. Things changed when the Home-Grown School Feeding Program (HGSFP) was introduced a...