WFPs School Feeding Program Helping Pastoral Ethiopian Girls

Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia has nine regional states, and Somali regional state is the second largest state after Oromia region. It borders Djibouti to the North, Somalia to East and North East, Kenya to the South and within Ethiopia it borders Oromia region to the West and Afar region in North-West. Somali region is administratively divided into nine administrative provinces with 52 districts, and has got a total population size of 4, 439,147, according to 2009 official population census. According to the Regional Bureau of Education (BOE) in Jigjiga, the total numbers of students enrolled in primary and intermediary schools are 716,812 (523,105 boys, and 193, 707 girls) attending classes from grade one to grade eight. With a total a number of formal and non-formal primary and intermediary schools in the region reported to be 1,223 schools. The region is the least developed and is chronically food insecure and during the recent past, due to climatic changes the region has witnessed recurrent droughts with unprecedented magnitude that has claimed huge number of livestock, in an area that is predominantly 80% pastoralist. Farmers whose farms are mostly rain fed have also been hugely affected by the droughts that directly led to crop failures. The result were increased malnutrition cases through out the region and the effect has put many families who lost their livestock herds into destitution and into the below poverty line. There are intermingled myriads of problems affecting the region due to poor infrastructure and in-adequate social infrastructure coupled with occurrence of both natural and man-made hazards, and in absence of rehabilitation and recovery programs these has led to reduced resilience to droughts and floods. Given the above set of condition and hardships, the Somali pastoral families residing in the rural areas of Somali Region state have not had the opportunity to enroll their children in Schools due to the absence and lack of schools at the rural area. Most schools are built and mostly found at the urban centers, making rural children out of reach for those schools. In-addition many parents and household heads Rosetta Stone Italian are not aware of the importance of education; illiteracy rate in Ethiopia is 64%. Most pastoral households prefer their children to take care of the animals while the girls are left at home to wash the dishes, cloths and cook for the entire family, other parents see their children as a helping hand to generate an additional income for the families. According to educationist in the region student enrolment and attendance is very low during the two dry seasons of the year student drop out rates were extremely very high during the droughts, as the children did not have enough to eat at home in-order to attend school. Many will move with their families into the interior in search of a better pasture and water and mostly never to return back to school. Ministry of Education (MoE) and World Food Programmee jointly started an initiative to increase school attendance rate of pastoralist children in the Somali Region of Ethiopia in the year 2000. By investing in the human capital through school meal, food for education and take home rations for girls, WFP aims to break poverty circle, reduce malnutrition rate and educate the girls with the long term plan of eradicating the scorch and the old tradition of Female Genital Mutilation/Cut (FGM) which is highly prevalent in Somali Region than any other regional state.To at least minimize the negative impact of natural and manmade hazards on education, particularly, in regularizing attendance, minimizing drop-outs, promoting the quality of education and nutritional status of students at school level, the Ethiopian Government and WFP agreed that School Feeding Programme could be one of right important intervention in Somali region. In this account, WFP and MOE have together endorsed the commencement of CHILD/FFE programme in the region. As a result, it was in 2000 when the programme was, in the first time, introduced in the region, as pilot, in 10 selected food insecure kebeles of Jigjiga zone. Following the provision of on-site meals and distribution of oil for Girls Initiative Oil (GIP) as a home take ration, the programme performance was appreciated and found successful. For instance, it was found that the enrolment rate, in assisted schools, was annually increased 5%, in average, for each sex group of male and female. In this regard, it was further expanded to more schools in Jigjiga and Shinile zones.

Posted in: Rosetta Stone,Rosetta Stone Outlet,rosetta stone software,Rosetta Stone V3