NYERI, Kenya Oct 19 – Nyeri Senator Wahome Wamatinga has launched a programme to distribute porridge in 30 schools within his county as part of measures to mitigate hunger.
The Senator said many children are unable to remain in school due to hunger as a result of the drought affecting many parts of the country.
“We have initiated a pilot programme where we will be distributing porridge to schools which are most venerable. It has come to our attention that most of the learners are going to school without having taken any meal and I took a personal initiative to start the uji (porridge) distribution programme for the remainder of the term before things get out of hand,” Wamatinga told reporters Friday.
He said the county government, the business community, well-wishers and all other leaders should join hands to ensure that school-going children do not miss a meal.
Speaking at Nyakinyua primary School in Witemere slums, Wamatinga said that as a result of the drought the number of children going to school has drastically reduced.
“Most children are facing starvation and some have even stopped attending school as they have nothing to eat. This school has a population of about 400 learners and those in school are around 250. We have to look for ways to ensure that they do not miss classes,” he said.
He called on the government to declare the drought a national disaster as many Kenyans have been affected.
“We are urging President William Ruto to declare hunger a national disaster so that the necessary intervention can be put in place,” he said.
He also said as legislators they will amend the law on the construction of dams to allow public-private partnerships in order to address the issue of agriculture.
“We as the legislatures and the people entrusted to take care of the legislative and the oversight agenda of the county, we are preparing ourselves to take to the parliament the change of the law so that we can have a possibility of doing a public private partnership because over-reliance of budget have hampered some development projects that could have already been undertaken,” he said.
