Many of you will have heard of Mary’s Meals but, for those of you who haven’t, it is a fantastic organisation that provides school lunches for very poor children in countries throughout the world. Now, we are copying this idea to set up the Kids’ Kitchen in order to carry out the same type of work in a village in Kenya.

The concept is very clever because foodstuffs and cooking utensils will be bought with funds raised through donations, and then the grandmothers will do the cooking to ensure that the school children have a cooked lunch. This is a wonderful idea for a number of reasons; in particular, if children have food in their stomachs at midday they will be more likely to work hard at school. Also, if the children have had one good meal at lunchtime, there is less pressure on the grandmothers to provide a full evening meal, something that is almost impossible for them to do, for financial reasons and because many of them are sick or very old. Also, it gives a wonderful opportunity for the grandmothers to participate in the provision of the meals for the children, which will be a source of pride for them.

Direct Link is now busy fund-raising to buy the cooking pots and utensils, which will be a one-off purchase, as well as the foodstuffs that will, of course, be an ongoing cost. The grannies are all prepared to cook the food, in rotation, to provide lunches for all the orphans in the project. The aim is to feed approximately 250 children at the local Primary School, five days a week, during the school term. If enough funds can be raised, the project can extend to feeding the children during the weekends and school holidays as well.

This project is very much in its infancy and, if you would like to be in on it right from the start, please contact us with a suggestion as to how you could help. We are urgently looking for people who will kindly fund-raise for this project or even go out to the village to supervise the setting up of the facilities and the organisation of the grandmothers' rota.

I never knew what I could not do so I was willing to try anything. (Anon)