Dear Friends

We have a charity that looks after a variety of community projects in Southern and Eastern Africa. One of these projects is a primary school on Benguerra Island Mozambique. Over the last ten years this school has grown in size and status and this year we had 325 children in fairly regular attendance. The school has to do a morning and an afternoon session to accommodate this number of children with the teachers and classrooms we have, but they have been doing a great job with this so far.

To take our school to the next level we would like to build them a kitchen that can provide each child and the teachers with a meal per day served before going into class. The children studying in the morning would get breakfast and those attending classes in the afternoon would be offered lunch.

The benefits are as follows...

1. Schoolchildren who are offered a meal at school are going to come to school more regularly and therefore offering meals will greatly improve school attendance. Sometimes the children walk for an hour to get to school and whilst this is not uncommon in Africa it would be much easier if there was some sustenance on offer in exchange for their efforts.

2. Children with something in their stomachs are going to have better nutrition, health and concentration. In this part of the world an extra meal a day can make a real difference to their calorific intake. It is not that common for children to receive three decent meals a day in this part of the world.

Our Mozambican Charity, called the Rainbow Fund, has worked to build and maintains the school facilities. We currently have 5 classrooms, a sanitation block with boys and girls toilets,
as well as accommodation for the teachers who have come from Mainland Mozambique.

By being able to offer them a meal at school we can really make a difference to their lives at what is a critical stage in a child's growth and development. Hence help the future of this community grow!