New school kitchen at Mshikamano Primary School
We are very happy with the completion of a brand new school kitchen at Mshikamano primary school!
The existing kitchen was environmentally damaging, inefficient and unhygienic. Our partners Ndoto in Action met with the community at Mshikamano primary school and the community immediately identified the school kitchen as one aspect of the school needing urgent attention. The school only had a temporary, very smokey kitchen in a small room without a floor. The cooks were cooking on the ground on top of three bricks using firewood. This method of cooking is not only uncomfortable and unhealthy for the cooks, but is also inefficient in that it uses a lot of wood, creates a lot of smoke, and has a high risk of fire. The kitchen was very unhygienic with no proper food storage or dishwashing facilities. With enormous thanks to the wonderful Educational and General Charitable Trust we have funded the construction of a brand new kitchen!
The existing kitchen with no floor and a cooking pot on three bricks
What’s included in the new kitchen?
4 stoves for cooking
2 stores one for keeping firewood during the rainy season so it stays dry, and one for food storage.
Basin facilities to wash dishes
Food serving hatch
Chimneys
Area for students to eat at
Well painted walls
A place to store dishes
Hussein, Found of our partner organisation in Tanzania, Ndoto in Action, spoke about the completion of the project and the impact it has had:
Why was it so important?
The kitchen was very important for Mshikamano Primary school, the school provides food to 387 pupils and the environment that the food was being prepared in was not conducive to making nutritious and safe food. Having a new kitchen at the school means the improvement of the pupils health. We wanted pupils to get hygienic food at the school that will increase their concentration but also prevent risk of disease.
How has it turned out?
The kitchen project has to turned out to be very important to students, teachers, and the community at large. Not to forget the cook who has a conducive environment for cooking and is not affected by the smoke which was affecting them in their previous kitchen. The current kitchen is consuming less firewood compared to the earlier stoves in the old kitchen which saves the school money. The food store helps preserve food for longer.
The school committee has committed to working with the school to ensure that the kitchen is well looked after. To ensure the kitchen is maintained in the long term the community contributed 10% of the labour required to ensure they were involved and to help develop a sense of ownership over the project. Ndoto In Action collected all required building materials and ensured that local builders were hired to lead the kitchen construction.
The new kitchen also helps as a tool to motivate parents to contribute and bring food to the school for their children. We are so happy that parents have been motivated enough to help contribute maize and beans for their children to eat every day (depending on the harvest) so their children can learn and perform better in school.
What is the Impact we hope to see?
In the long run, we hope the new kitchen will lead to improved learning outcomes for 387 pupils at Mshikamano Primary School.
This long term impact will be realised by the following outcomes:
Improved performance and concentration of 387 pupils at Mshikamano primary school.
Improved health to 387 pupils at Mshikamano primary school and 2 chefs.
Improved attendance to 387 pupils at Mshikamano primary school.
Tsh 125,000 per day savings from the reduced amount of firewood used for cooking.
The opneng ceremony of the new kitchen, attended by Hussein, Found of Ndoto in Action and Chair of Made with Hope, Alex.
Thankyou so much to the Educational and General Charitable Trust!