As a charity, our mission at Harambee Schools Kenya (HSK) is to empower communities through education.

One of our ongoing programmes that we have run is the schools lunch programme, where, through our team out in Kenya, we have helped feed hundreds of school children thousands of lunches across our schools network. The lunch programme has been funded in a number of ways; predominantly we have been asking for donations of £15 to feed a child for a year.

But Covid-19 has hit Kenya hard. Schools have shut and children are back with their families. Many are sadly going without the nutrition they need and our meals would normally provide. So we are shifting our focus to providing food more directly to the families who are struggling to feed their children at home.

With the help of our donors, we have initially successfully supplied 200 lunchbox packages to local families in and around the small town of Gilgil, which is the focus of our operations. These can feed a vulnerable family for a month. But the government has now announced that schools will not reopen until January next year, so we need to put something longer term in place.

With that goal in mind, we are now proposing to supply families with children at our primary schools with nutritious food for a meal a day for their child or children every day to eat at home until the schools reopen (when we will revert to providing lunches at school). We will do this by providing collection facilities at the schools themselves. The cost of this programme is about £15,000.

While we have some funds available, we need to raise more as the summer comes to an end and we are hopeful that new and previous donors can put in a week of tube fares (say £35) or more that may have been saved by working from home to help achieve this. Even better, if this can be done regularly by standing order.

The coronavirus has sometimes been called an equaliser because it has affected both rich and poor, but when it comes to food, the commonality comes to an end. It is poor people, including large segments of poorer nations, who are now growing hungry and facing the prospect of starving.

We are so grateful for any support you are able to give to this campaign. Everyone involved in this campaign is a volunteer, so 100% of donated money is used to purchase and distribute the food.