Donating Food at Answaar Pre-School

On the 3rd of March 2012, Members of the Your Environmental Voice Org visited Answaar Mikomani to donate food at the Answaar Mikomani Pre-School for the feeding program and to provide the materials that are needed to commence the construction of the water tank.

For the past 2 weeks, Your Environmental Voice Org had hosted a food drive at the Aga Khan Academy Mombasa where students as well as teachers donated various dry foods to support our cause. The proceedings of the food drive would be donated to 3 different locations, one of them being Answaar Mikomani.

Thanks to the contributions of the teachers and students of the Aga Khan Academy Mombasa, as well as a generous donation of 300 Kg’s of food from Supa Loaf, we were able to raise a total of 1463 Kg’s (1.463 Tons). There have been several food drives in the past few years hosted at the Aga Khan Academy Mombasa and this is by far the most successful.

The food was divided into 3 equal parts for 3 different locations, each location getting approximately 480 Kg’s of food.

The first location was Answaar Mikomani. The pre-school there had previously had a feeding program, but  ceased to exist due to the water problems the community there faces. The kids there hardly concentrate in class due to hunger and this is one of the main reasons that we felt obliged to re-start the feeding program there.

We understand that this amount may not necessarily last the school for a very long period, however, we expect it to last them until the completion of the water tank where they shall be able to have access to water and hopefully grow their own food.

Members of the community were definitely pleased by the donation, the looks they had on their faces once they saw the truck filled with food arrive was indescribable. Some of them even stating that they wished we would have notified them of our arrival earlier so that they could provide us with gifts. We however emphasised that we do not help people to get gifts from them. Although the thought is highly appreciated we did not want them to stress them to try and get us gifts when they can barely afford food for themselves.

I must say that the most memorable part of the experience was when one of the community members thanked us for our donation. He stated that he thanks God for us arriving there as some of the food stuffs we have given them today, they have not gotten a glimpse off in up to 2 years. This filled our hearts with joy as we had never expected our donation to have that much of an impact on the lives of these people and we can gladly say that we have made a much bigger difference in that community than we had ever expected to make.

Special thanks to Nicole Nikolaidis for telling us about Answaar Mikomani and Supa Loaf for their generous donation of 300kg’s of Food.