Ethiopia, 25 November 2013,

Udassa Repi Elementary School, Butajira, SNNPR Region

WFP’s activities are intended to contribute towards the Government of Ethiopia’s five-year development agenda, the Growth and Transformation Plan (GTP), through which the Government continues to address food insecurity in the country.
WFP Ethiopia’s Development Programme consists of two core components: School Meals and MERET (Managing Environmental Resources to Enable Transition), a programme supporting sustainable land and water management practices to increase productivity in food-insecure communities.
Through the School Meals programme, WFP provides a daily hot meal to nearly 700,000 school children. This promotes increased attendance and enrollment and reduces drop outs in food insecure areas in Ethiopia. In addition, the programme supports formal education by developing schools into community resource centres that promote good nutrition and environmental awareness.

In the photo: Sekina Hassen (right), a first grader at Udassa Repi Elementary school, eating school meals. She loves the porridge served at 10:30 am every morning at school. It’s her first meal in a day and it is something she looks forward to.

“It’s very tasty,” Sekina, seven-years old, says of the porridge, which is made of maize and haricot beans blend. The maize and haricot beans are produced by local farmers.

At home, Sekina’s family cannot afford to give her breakfast. When she comes back home in the early afternoon, she eats maize bread for lunch and Injera at night for dinner. The two meals are all she eats at home.

Sekina’s father is a local policeman and she is the oldest of the three daughters in her family. Sekina’s dream is to become a teacher or doctor.

Photo: WFP/Kiyori Ueno