Disadvantaged students eat well, study better at rural,
community-based schools

Young Koranic school students in northern Senegal used to beg for alms each day to help pay for their school meals. But many of these same children now spend more time in class thanks to a successful hot meal program funded by USAID which enables traditional Koranic schools to focus on feeding the minds of their students.

In the village of Mboumba, like in many small villages in Senegal, traditional Muslim schools receive little assistance and the students live in difficult conditions. Boarding at the school because their families are too poor to provide food and education, students under the USAID-financed program receive hot meals, medical supplies, bedding, mosquito nets to prevent malaria, and vocational and literacy training.

U.S. Ambassador Janice L. Jacobs and USAID Mission Director Olivier Carduner visited a number of schools to meet program beneficiaries and to view the results of this program. In the village of Mboumba, the Ambassador was greeted with drumming and singing from enthusiastic students who held banners thanking the United States.

“By helping the students at these schools, you are also helping the women, the men and every household within the village,” said Thierno Bass, head of Mboumba’s Koranic schools. Another school head, Thierno Diop, said: “We have already seen immediate results from this program as students are able to stay in school longer and learn more each day.”

The US Government provides the funding and food commodities for the Koranic school feeding program, food commodities are made available through USAID’s Food for Peace, or “Title II” program.

The program now reaches 3,800 students in nine Koranic schools in the Podor and Coki areas of northern Senegal. This activity aims to improve the students’ living and learning conditions, health, and nutrition, as well as to strengthen community ties to the Koranic schools to help ensure a brighter future for these young people.