The Feeding Project
Providing nutritious Mahewu for orphans and vulnerable children in rural Northern Zimbabwe.
Our Story
In March 2015, Lesley Lysaght accompanied the St Alberts Mission Hospital outreach workers as they visited schools in rural northern Zimbabwe. The district is classified food insecure. None of the students they met that morning had eaten before walking long distances to school. The children appeared weak and lethargic. It triggered a response, and a partnership, that continues to the present.
What We Do
With the assistance of the hospital outreach team and the school principals, a supplementary feeding program was started at two impoverished rural schools, Sable Heights and Clearmorning Primary. Lesley and her friends in Sydney raised funds to cover the purchase of a product called mahewu, delivered from outlets in Harare each term. Every morning the school staff and volunteers mix the dry product with water and serve a nutritionally fortified liquid porridge to the children.
The Kids
The Children in the food insecure region of northern Zimbabwe are typically malnourished, lethargic, unable to concentrate, and pass rates are dismally low. Absenteeism is high because often students don’t have the physical strength to walk the many kilometres to school. Many are stunted as a result of poor nutrition. Up to 30% are likely to be AIDS orphans and are HIV positive and they don’t want to take their ARV meds which make them nauseous if they haven’t eaten.
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We acknowledge the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation as the Traditional Custodians of the Country on which we work. We recognise their continuing connection to the land and pay our respects to Elders past, present, and emerging.
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