Social Welfare: Feeding and Nutrition Programme
Our Feeding and Nutrition Programme serves as a vital foundation for education, health, and child protection in Embu. Initially feeding over 100 children daily at our Rescue Centre we now feed over 500 children daily through our kitchen at the Rescue Centre and a remote kitchen at Gatwe Primary School.
Overview
Since 2005 our feeding programme in Embu has been providing nutritious hot lunches on a daily basis for over 100 vulnerable children at our Rescue Centre in Embu but in May 2025, we added to this by providing Uji (a nourishing East African porridge) breakfasts for children attending a couple of Early Child Development Centres (ECDs) in town. By September 2025, this initiative expanded significantly; we were providing breakfast and lunch for all the children attending Shauri ECD, Dallas ECD, Kathita ECD, Gatwe ECD, and the Rescue Centre ECD.
Our feeding and nutrition programme now ensures that an average of 380 children receives breakfast and an average of 535 children receives lunch every single school day. By January 2026 we had opened a remote kitchen at Gatwe Primary School and expanded the kitchen at the Embu Rescue Centre, employed two new staff for the feeding programme and provided new energy efficient jiko cookers and the required utensils and equipment to help with the extra workload. We also improved the breakfast menu to give more variety and added more fruit, vegetables, eggs and bread to the breakfasts and lunches, as well as providing hot chocolate every morning for all the children attending the ECD’s.
Our commitment to these children extends far beyond the boundaries of the classroom. When schools close for the holidays and household budgets are stretched to their limits, we keep our kitchens running at the Rescue Centre to ensure that approximately 200 of the most vulnerable children continue to eat daily. The programme has evolved into a comprehensive child protection strategy that uses food as a powerful catalyst for community safety and social integration. For young people living on the streets, a hot meal is a welcoming first step, it gives them a safe space to visit and opens the door to our adult literacy classes, qualified counsellors and connects them with structured sports teams through our Black Cats Academy.
Feeding and Nutrition Summary Reports
Get involved
Volunteer with Moving Mountains Kenya through our volunteer in Kenya trips with Adventure Alternative.
We love welcoming passionate people to Embu to work directly alongside our local teams. Whether you are helping out in one of our kitchens, supporting classroom teachers, running training sessions with the Black Cats Football Academy or helping our local volunteers to deliver our life skills programme, your time makes a real difference. Through our travel partner, you can experience a safe, ethical, and deeply rewarding placement and help the charity to continue moving mountains for all the young people and communities involved with our programmes.
Future Aims
Looking ahead, our primary goal is to sustainably expand the reach of our Feeding and Nutrition Programme to protect even more vulnerable children. The new expanded kitchen at the Rescue Centre is currently working to about 55% of its capacity. We have identified other slum and rural locations to expand the programme but to safely manage this growth, we are actively seeking new institutional donors and partners.
By designing flexible menus and optimizing staff workflows, we can protect our daily food supply against rising market inflation and nationwide food shortages, ensuring our commitment to these children remains uninterrupted. The Family Food Bank also provides a reliable safety net for households facing severe hardships like evictions or sudden loss of income, this would be another area that requires expansion and more local donations of food.
Feeding and Nutrition Programme Gallery
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