A 13-year-old Kenyan girl will share her experiences on how UN-backed school meals have helped her in school and fight hunger through a series of videos to be broadcast online tomorrow.
Molly, who lives in the Mathare slum, one of the poorest in Kenya, has received school meals from the World Food Programme (WFP) for four years.
The videos will showcase her everyday life which she will share with children in an international school in Rome through a live webcast.
The general public will be given opportunities to submit questions to Molly before her online presentation through WFP’s Facebook page.
“If you nourish a girl with school meals you feed her dreams and open up a world of opportunity.” – Nancy Roman, WFP Director of Communications, Public Policy and Private Partnerships
Ms. Roman stresses that using video technology to bring Molly and her story direct to children and viewers around the wolrd is an important opportunity to offer an insight into just how life-changing school meals can be in forming the women of the future.
Molly’s videos is entitled “Molly’s World: A Girl Films her Life in a Nairobi Slum.” The videos will also be available for viewing on WFP’s website on International Women’s Day, which is celebrated on 8 March.
According to WFP, school meals help children grow, thrive and concentrate better.
WFP says school meals provide an incentive to families to send youngsters to school and they help keep girls attend classes regularly.
According to the agency, the majority of those receiving WFP food assistance are women and children.
WFP recognizes that women are key elements in the fight against hunger as research has shown that in the hands of women, food is most likely to reach the mouths of children in need.
The video camera Molly used to record her life was one of 2,500 high-definition digital cameras provided to WFP by the networking company Cisco, as part of its corporate social responsibility programme.
Hunger is the world’s greatest solvable problem, affecting 1 in 7 people – almost one billion men, women and children around the world.
The World Food Programme is the world’s largest humanitarian agency fighting hunger worldwide. Each year, on average, WFP feeds more than 90 million people in more than 70 countries.
UN reports people facing severe food shortages include 3.2 million people in Ethiopia, 3.5 million in Kenya, 2.5 million in Somalia, an estimated 600,000 residents of north-eastern Uganda and some 120,000 people in Djibouti.
