BULAWAYO -- Relief organisations have reportedly suspended a supplementary feeding scheme for children at schools in Bulawayo saying food supplies have improved in the countrys second largest city. (Pictured: School children (file pic) Two leading relief agencies have reportedly discontinued a supplementary feeding schemThe programme that was run by the World Vision Zimbabwe (WVZ) and the World Food Programme (WFP) was benefiting children at about 87 kindergarten and primary schools in the hunger-prone city.
WVZ and WFP officials were not immediately available to take questions on the matter. But teachers said the two groups that have helped feed Zimbabweans since food shortages began about nine years ago sent circulars informing school authorities that they were discontinuing the feeding programme.
We received circulars from WVZ and WFP before we closed schools last term, advising us that the programme will be terminated, said a teacher at St Patricks primary school in the city, who declined to be named because she did not have permission from her superiors to discuss the matter with the Press.
WVZ and WFP cited the improved food situation in the country as one of the reasons for withdrawing the scheme. We really appeal to the two relief organisations to reconsider their decision because the programme was benefiting a lot of our children, added the teacher.
The teacher said attendance at her school had decreased by 30 percent as a result of the withdrawal of the programme.
A local councilor, Charles Ndlovu, also appealed to the relief organisations to review their decision to discontinue a programme he said had become an important source of nutrition for children from vulnerable households.
Ndlovu said: The programme was really helping school children especially pre school pupils and children from highly vulnerable households. Due to dollarisation most parents cannot afford to buy their families food. I am planning a meeting with WVZ and WFP officials next week to try to convince them to continue with the programme in my ward.
Once a net exporter of the staple maize grain, Zimbabwe has faced acute food shortages since 2001 after President Robert Mugabe began in 2000 his controversial land reform programme that saw experienced white farmers replaced by either incompetent or poorly funded black farmers resulting in a massive drop in food production.
Chaos in agriculture because of farm seizures also hit hard Zimbabwes once impressive manufacturing sector that had depended on a robust farming sector for orders and inputs.
Most of Zimbabwes industries have since the beginning of farm seizures either scaled down operations or shut down altogether, in a country where unemployment is more than 90 percent.
Post published in: Analysis