Nepal - WFP leads walk to stop child hunger

[Angel]

The World Food Programme (WFP) hopes to mobilise around 1,500 Nepalese children and 500 adults to take part in the global Walk the World initiative on 21 May to raise funds to fight hunger.

The event, which has been running for three years, is expected to raise US $5 million for WFP's global school feeding programme. Last year over 200,000 sponsored walkers in 266 locations raised funds to feed 70,000 children around the world.

"This initiative is a platform to raise millions of funds for the hungry Nepalese children," said Mark Squirrel, security officer at WFP Nepal, before heading for Mount Everest where he plans to reach the summit by Sunday as part of the global campaign.

WFP in Nepal estimates that nearly a million Nepalese children are unable to attend school due to poverty and lack of food. The food agency says 47 percent of Nepal's 12 million people do not have enough food to keep them healthy.

Its Food For Education (FfE) programme, introduced in 1996, has helped to bring over 200,000 children from the poorest families to primary and lower secondary schools, in particular female children. The students receive a hot lunch made of maize, wheat, soya, vegetable ghee and sugar.

"Such a programme has been especially helpful in enrolling and retaining girls in schools," said Jean Pierre de Margerie, acting Director of WFP in Nepal.

One such beneficiary is school girl Sudha Lama. Her parents are so poor they can barely afford to provide a daily square meal for the family. Like many villagers in Palung, Makwanpur district, 200 km southeast of Nepal's capital Kathmandu, her parents own a small plot of land that only produces enough rice and vegetables to feed the family for half the year.

Their poverty kept Sudha from attending school: the fees are too high and she's needed to tend the small subsistence farm that is all that keeps them from starvation.

But this changed two months ago when teachers from a nearby school said the child would be enrolled for free and provided with meals whilst at school. "My daughter will be now educated and my dream has come true," Sudha's mother said with a smile on her face.

In less than three years, the school has been able to enroll 170 children.