Wawira Njiru, the founder of Food4Education, at the Food4Education Giga Kitchen in Industrial area, Nairobi, Kenya, on Oct. 18, 2023.Edwin Ndeke—Guardian/eyevine/Redux
BY VARSHA BANSAL – MAY 30, 2024 7:41 AM EDT
What started out 12 years ago as an ad hoc way to feed 25 schoolchildren in a town outside of Nairobi is now Africa’s largest locally led and independently run school food program. Food4Education, the nonprofit brainchild of founder and CEO Wawira Njiru, feeds more than 300,000 children every day in Kenya. In partnership with Kenya’s national government and county authorities, it runs 18 kitchens that source ingredients locally and employ locals, more than half of whom are parents. But for Njiru, feeding the children attending Nairobi’s public schools is just the start. “We’re creating the blueprint for scalable, replicable, and cost-efficient school feeding across Africa,” she says. In pursuit of its goal to feed 1 million kids each day by 2027, and 3 million by 2030, Food4Education plans to expand into other African countries interested in improving nutrition to bolster children’s school performance…