‘Best school in the district’ faces closure as hunger takes over
Even before the Mary’s Meals team reached the building, the need for our school feeding programme to reach this community was painfully clear.
As we approached Gendet Primary School on a recent Mary’s Meals visit, we heard a quiet yet unmistakable chanting from the children. Walking down the school path past them, we began to recognise the words. The children were whispering together, “We need food. We need food. We need food.”
A few of them had homemade posters. Messages such as, ‘always my tummy rumble in class’, ‘I am hungry, I cannot learn properly’, and ‘welcome to our school, if you are feeding us, we will learn properly’ were held aloft by children and their teachers.
This is a school that is not currently part of the Mary’s Meals school feeding programme, and it shows. Rarely has a community welcome had such a tone of desperation. One after the other, people stood and shared their fears for their families and talked about the realities facing people in this part of Tigray, a region in northern Ethiopia whose development has been set back decades by recent events. After two years of brutal conflict and three years of failed rains – culminating in the current devastating drought – this community is on its knees.
Once a school of 1300 children, around half have stopped attending. The community fears its only school will have to close. Hundreds of the locals are already affected by malnutrition, including more than 30 of the youngest children who were classed as ‘dangerously malnourished’ in the MUAC tests that were recently conducted here. The results showed how vulnerable people in this community are to hunger, yet, so far, no help has come.
Before the drought, the land around the school was very green. And before the war it was full of cattle. But now, it’s dusty and barren. They say 28 people from the community have died from hunger and many more are sick. Worryingly, people here are sure that worse is yet to come.
It’s a far cry from the way the school was just a few years ago, before Covid-19 and the subsequent civil war forced an almost three-year closure. Gebrehiwot Araya, the community leader, takes pride in explaining that the school used to be the best in the district, a model school in the area. But his pride gives way to anger as he questions how children can be expected to properly learn here now, when classrooms have been looted and destroyed and every pupil’s attention is on their growling pangs of hunger, rather than lessons.
Although he still attends occasionally, Girmay is one of the children who is at risk of dropping out of school completely.
He lives with his mother Asefu, a short walk away from the school. Perched on the side of a low hill, you can see the damaged classrooms and the dry school grounds from their home. It was badly damaged a few years ago and since the family lack any funds to make repairs, they both now sleep in what used to be the animal shed. Asefu says she faces great fear every night, trying to fall asleep when she is scared of how exposed they are to dangers like wild animals.
The family used to get by through renting their land to other farmers who would share 50% of the harvest in return. But now Asefu says everyone is in need and the whole community faces the same challenges. The drought has left the earth too dry for any food to grow and the conflict has stolen any means the people had to farm – animals have been killed, farm machinery and fields have been set on fire. In Asefu and Girmay’s home, the soldiers looted everything from the spoons to the coffeepot and their two sheep were slaughtered. It’s hard to describe just how much has been taken from this small family.
Things are so bad that Asefu has started begging other family members for help, but she says what they can give them is not sufficient. With a sad smile and a resigned shrug, she talks of the shame she feels and how horrible it is to have to look others in the eye and beg for help.
For Girmay, he’s becoming more and more withdrawn as a result. His two older siblings have already left because of hunger and Asefu fears that Girmay will be the same.
“My son is hungry when there is no food in the house and sometimes he is angry at me. Some days he stays at home and sleeps the whole day.
“Before the war, he would talk well with anyone, now he is very quiet. He used to be very active in school, but he’s been absent many times now because of hunger in the family.
“He needs food and the education. With a meal he will be helped to be more active, he will be good. The food is very important, but he needs the education too, for his mental health.
“If a child is educated, they have more choices, they can be a driver, a teacher, there are many options.”
Girmay himself clearly understands the value of education. He doesn’t speak much at all, but does acknowledge a shy desire to be a teacher in the future. He says he likes school but he’s always worrying about things like the maintenance of his house. Thinking back to when the school was closed, he says: “I felt lonely and low, and I missed my friends.” Now that it has reopened, he wants to go but the high levels of hunger make it so difficult.
Girmay and Asefu know about Mary’s Meals and they are desperately hoping that the school feeding programme can be introduced here. They talk of how happy it would make them. Girmay says: “with a school feeding programme I would try to learn properly. If there was a meal, I would be happy and it would be good.”
There is widespread agreement that school meals are essential in the nation’s recovery. One paediatrician (who received school meals himself as a child) working at the largest hospital in the region’s capital told us that the future of Tigray depends on it.
Without a school feeding programme at Gendet Primary School, it’s easy to see how Girmay may just remain at home sleeping, with Asefu becoming more and more worried about what will happen to him. Despite all they have suffered, today he still has enough of a glimmer of hope to shyly talk of his dreams to be a teacher – but with each passing day that is lost to a vicious hunger, he loses more and more of that hope for a brighter future.
Please help us take that small glimmer of hope and turn it into something that blazes much brighter.
You can help to change the future for Girmay and all the many, many children at Gendet Primary School who are waiting for Mary’s Meals. One of the simple signs the children had made said, “Please consider supporting us.” We are ready to serve them, but we can’t do it without you.
