Porridge Feeding Programme

In 2019 Heartbeat Africa established a partnership with a grassroots organisation called Transform Communities Initiative (TCI). TCI is involved with several community outreach programmes and oversees a porridge feeding programme within the Turkana region of Northern Kenya. This region of Kenya is badly affected by extreme poverty and drought and there is a desperate need for humanitarian aid and support.

Since 2019, Heartbeat Africa's Project Co-ordinator Chris Saunders has personally visited the feeding programme each year to carry out field visits to monitor the work being done and to strengthen the relationship with our local partner TCI.

Children receiving porridge at a feeding centre

Programme Expansion and Impact

The Porridge Feeding Programme continues to expand each year and currently has 32 centres with 8 of these developing into Early Learning Child Development Centres (ECDCs) with classrooms and voluntary teachers. The Feeding Programme currently supports approximately 4,600 children. From this population of children, approx 1,100 have been enrolled into the 8 learning centres.

Heartbeat Africa currently provides daily porridge (5 days a week) to the 800 children attending 5 of the Early Learning Child Development Centres. The provision of this daily porridge has had a significant impact through improving school attendance which will help towards the long term goal of breaking the poverty cycle in this region. Many of the children attending these schools are the first in their families to be accessing an education. School attendance is also helping to reduce and prevent the ongoing cultural practices of child marriage and FGM.

Turkana County Statistics

Key Challenges:

Turkana county is a desert region located in north-west Kenya. Turkana is badly affected by persistent drought which makes cultivating the land extremely difficult. The majority of the population experience severe hunger with malnutrition affecting 1 in 3 children.

1 M Population

83% Poverty Rate

1 in 3 children Acutely malnourished

70% Food insecurity & hunger

Current Feeding Programme Statistics

Impact in numbers

Heartbeat Africa is currently providing 8,640kg of porridge per year, equivalent to 216,000 cups of porridge. However, there is still a great need to reach many more children! With your help we would like to increase our existing commitment to feed more children and impact more lives.

32 centres FEEDING OVER 4,600 CHILDREN

80 - 350 Number of children per centre

1,100 children Fed daily (5 days a week) - across 8 centres during school terms. Heartbeat Africa currently supports 800 of these children

3,500 children Fed once a week (every Sunday) - across 24 centres. Heartbeat Africa currently supports 1,300 of these children