The Global Fund For Children - U8 Initiative Success Story

U8 Initiative Success Story

Click here to read about GFC grantee partner, WEAVE

What's for Lunch?

Grantee Partner
Women’s Education for Advancement and Empowerment (WEAVE)

Location
Chiang Mai, Thailand

A little soy milk. An egg. Fresh vegetables and fruit. Lunchtime foods that many kids take for granted are making a big difference in the health of nursery-school children who live in refugee camps along the Thailand-Myanmar border.

Most of the children, ages 2 to 5, were born in the camps. Their parents—members of the Karen and Karenni ethnic groups—fled fighting and oppression in Myanmar over the last two decades. According to human rights groups, about 150,000 refugees live in nine camps along the Thailand-Myanmar border. Around 15,000 people have been resettled in third-party countries in the last two years. The rest, who still await resettlement abroad, are not allowed by the Thai government to leave the camps in the meantime. They depend completely on international agencies and local NGOs for protection, schooling, healthcare, and food.

They are a neglected people, and the small children among them are unsurprisingly the most vulnerable group of all. The quantity and quality of food in the refugee camps is limited, with a diet meant more for short-term survival than long-term health. Rice, oil, fish paste, chili, salt, and yellow beans are available—but little else. This means that lactating mothers and young children lack essential vitamins, nutrients, protein, and fat at a crucial time in the children’s development. A recent report on nutrition in the refugee camps shows that 34.4 percent of the children under age 5 suffer from chronic malnutrition. Most 2- to 5-year-olds are underweight and disadvantaged when it comes to fighting disease. Physical and learning disabilities are increasingly common.

That’s why a little extra food at lunch can have a big impact. An organization called Women’s Education for Advancement and Empowerment (WEAVE) has worked inside the refugee camps since 1990, ensuring that displaced women and children have the education and skills they need to participate in the future development of their communities. The Global Fund for Children has helped to support WEAVE’s early childhood development program since 2005, with grants to train teachers, trainers, and parents working in 30 preschools inside three camps.

WEAVE has also used its Health and Well-Being supplemental grants to give preschoolers a nutritional boost at lunchtime. WEAVE’s midday meal program feeds nearly 3,000 kids in 25 preschools—with 600 covered by GFC funding. Parent volunteers come to each nursery school daily to help cooks prepare a variety of fresh, healthy food for the children. Two local partners—the Karen Women’s Organization and the Karenni National Women’s Organization—manage the lunch and preschool programs.

Best of all, WEAVE has leveraged these two small grants to obtain funding for the lunch program from other donors. So more kids are eating right, and they are healthier, more active, and ready to learn.