Kenya: How School in Flood Prone Nyando Is Fighting Malnutrition and Boosting Enrollment

Kisumu — In the flood-prone village of Nyamkebe, in Nyando Sub County, Kisumu, where families often go to bed on empty stomachs and homes are regularly swallowed by rising waters, education once took a back seat to survival.

Parents kept their children at home, not out of neglect, but out of necessity, because there was nothing to eat, and no reason to walk their children to school on an empty stomach.

But everything began to change with one simple act, a warm plate of food.

But everything began to change with one simple act, a warm plate of food.

Perez Odida, the dedicated ECD teacher and Centre Manager at Nyamkebe ECD Centre, a public school, has witnessed this transformation firsthand.

“We were only 55 children at the start,” she recalls. “But once the feeding program began, our enrollment rose to nearly 85. Even the children who were stuck at home, they’re now in school, because they know there is food.”

For many of these children, the school feeding program is not just an extra incentive, it’s a lifeline.

In a community hit hard by poverty and repeated flooding, food is scarce, and balanced nutrition is almost impossible to access at home.

But thanks to the feeding program supported by the county government of Kisumu, children of school age do not shy away from registering for lessons at the school.

Odida says due to the rising poverty and lack of employment, specifically for mothers who once depended on casual farm work in the rice fields, now taken over by mechanized farming, many families are now unable to feed their children.

“The school meal becomes the only reliable source of nutrition for the day,” said Odida.

She says hunger is a silent enemy of education, noting that when children are hungry, they struggle to focus, participate, or retain what they learn.

With a full stomach, she adds, children are more attentive, active, and engaged.

“When you teach a topic, you will find that you have almost everybody there. And even tomorrow, they will come again because they know that immediately after lessons, there is something to be taken.”

According to Rael Mwando, the Nutrition Services Coordinator for Kisumu County, most communities in the flood prone areas often face the double burden of poverty and food insecurity.

Mwando, spoke to Capital FM News in Nyando, during a vibrant Health and Nutrition Hackathon, an event supported by the French Embassy, UNICEF, Kenya Red Cross and the County Government of Kisumu.

“This is not just an event,” Rael explained. “It’s part of a larger program on nutrition resilience that we’re implementing in Kabonyo Kanyagwal Ward in Nyando Sub County.

The theme for the day, Healthy Me, Healthy You, Resilient Community, echoed across the Nyando Resource Centre Hall, as children from local ECD centers performed poems, skits, and songs on the importance of healthy eating.

Each school also showcased creative menus using locally available foods, grounded in the four essential food groups.

“We realized that if we instill good nutrition messages through these young ones, then we can be able to change the future generation.”

When asked about the real impact of nutrition, or lack of it on children, Rael was clear and direct.

“If we have good nutrition among these young children, we’ll have good cognitive development. That means they’ll perform well in school, and when they do, they’ll become productive adults in future,” she said.

She went further to explain the consequences of poor nutrition among children.

“If they are not well nourished, their immune system weakens. You’ll find a child in and out of school, due to sickness,” she said.

Rael pointed out the ripple effect, a sick child means the mother, often the primary caregiver, can’t work or farm, reducing the family’s productivity and income.

She also took a moment to advocate for the use of fortified foods, those enhanced with essential micronutrients like iodine, vitamin A, and iron, especially now that some Kenyans remain skeptical of such products.

“Fortification is good. It helps curb micronutrient deficiency,” she explained. “Take salt for example, it’s fortified with iodine. Previously we had a lot of Goiter cases, but now they’ve gone down because of iodized salt.”

At the Hackathon event, Pauline Odhiambo, a nutritionist, is leading efforts to educate both schools and families on how to protect children’s health for future endeavors.

“The productivity of these children in future starts strongly at the breastfeeding stage for the first six months, or else we will have a weaker man power in the coming years,” she said.

Odhiambo says how the mother eats when she is pregnant matters a lot for the development of the baby in the womb.

She noted that she is working closely with many poor households in the area to understand food groups.

With floods destroying crops in the area, many families are left with little more than maize or porridge to feed their children.

“We are teaching parents to move away from the idea that a full stomach means a fed child,” she said. “If a baby eats porridge every day with no variety, they will still be malnourished. That’s why we now teach about food groups and dietary diversity.”

Pauline teaches families to combine legumes like beans and groundnuts with vegetables, fruits, whole grains, and animal proteins, even if in small amounts.

She encourages the use of kitchen gardens, especially those using vertical farming or sacks, to grow nutrient-rich greens even when land is scarce or flooded.

“You don’t need to be rich to give your child the right food,” she emphasized. “You just need the knowledge.

By Capital FM.