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Find Out How School Meals Fill Nutritional Gaps for Children Like 5-Year-Old Băng

on  October 20, 2021

One hour outside of Da Nang, Vietnam, in the Thang Binh District, a smiley 5-year-old girl named Băng lives with her parents.In Thang Binh, agriculture is the main industry, and most of the residents work as farmers. When it isn’t the growing or harvest season, farming employment opportunities are harder to come by and, therefore, income is unstable for many families, including Băng’s.Every day, Băng’s father takes her to Binh Tu Kindergarten for school. Băng says she likes school, especially because of her nice teacher and many friends. While at school, Băng also receives Rise Against Hunger meals, distributed by partner Children of Vietnam, through her school’s feeding program.Of the 430 students, many come from families that struggle with steady incomes due to the local economy. Mrs. Van, the school’s principal, says the meals are, therefore, important to the students. It helps the children get the proper nutrition to be physically healthy, which then gives them the opportunity for a good future. Mrs. Van has worked as a teacher for 36 years and loves her job and working with the students. She wants what is best for the children.Mr. Phu, a staff member of the Charity Association of Quang Nam Province, which is a partner of Children of Vietnam, adds that since many of the children previously struggled to get the food they needed to live healthy lives, the school feeding program helps the children receive that necessary nutrition.Rise Against Hunger meals are distributed to children, like Băng and her classmates, in countries around the world. 70 percent of those we served last year through our Nourishing Lives pathway were children ages 0-17. These nutritious meals support their opportunities for a bright future, and you can make an impact! Host a meal packaging event today to have a hands-on role in our work by creating these meals that are then distributed to children and families!

About the Author

Strength, Stability And Hope

The gift that filled Nelly’s table.

“We were yielding very little, and the crops could not sustain us the whole year,” Nelly remembers. As a mother of seven and a farmer with two decades of experience, the stress of inconsistent yields was all-consuming. A poor harvest not only strained her family financially, but also limited their own meals to just two a day. Their story reflects that of many in their fishing and farming village near a lake in the Karonga district of northern Malawi. Here, heavy rainfall makes conventional farming methods nearly impossible. The entire village is, quite literally, saturated in food insecurity — a reality that leaves families struggling to survive season after season without a dependable source of nourishment.

In 2019, Nelly began participating in Harvesting Prosperity and Resilience, a sustainable agriculture project implemented by Rise Against Hunger in partnership with the Foundation for Community Support Services (FOCUS). The project works with 3,100 smallholder farmers in Malawi’s Karonga and Mzimba districts to strengthen food and nutrition security by improving production methods, nutrition practices and household income.

Just one year later, Nelly was ready to expand the variety of crops on her farm. What land once only produced maize began to flourish with sesame, cowpeas, rice and groundnuts during the rainy season (summer), as well as maize and vegetables during the dry season (winter). Through climate-smart agriculture training, she learned new techniques like manure making, pit planting and mulching, crop rotation and intercropping. Equipped with these tools, Nelly’s farm began to thrive.

After the 2023–2024 growing season, she sold enough produce to purchase an ox cart. Her harvests in 2024-2025 season yielded over 500 pounds of crops, including 22 bags of groundnuts, seven bags of maize, 12 tins of sesame and three bags of rice. With this surplus, she was able to invest in a motorbike, which she now uses to transport African doughnuts (mandasi) that she cooks and sells — creating yet another source of income for her family.

The transformation reaches far beyond her finances. Nelly now has the stability to provide for her husband and children. “I am able to eat different food types, pay school fees for my children and fulfill the visions that I have made with my family,” she beams. “I am now sleeping peacefully without any fears of food or paying school fees for the children.”

Her leadership has also grown. Today, Nelly serves as a leader in the Harvesting Prosperity and Resilience project, teaching other farmers in her district to adopt climate-resilient, labor-saving practices. By sharing her knowledge, she is multiplying her impact — empowering her neighbors to experience the same transformation she has achieved.

Across Nelly’s community, food and economic security are on the rise. Lombani, a government extension officer for the region, explains, “I can see the community is being transformed in the sense that in the area, there is food, income and nutrition security. Development is also happening at the household level.”

Nelly reflects on what it means to invest in holistic programs that address the root causes of hunger: “We are now healthy people. Children are going to school after eating their breakfast, having high yields and different types of crops due to conservation agriculture practices. With the support from the project, we have food, and we can access other food items from the market after selling our produce.”

This is the gift that fills: a future full of stability, strength and hope. It fills tables with food, families with security and communities with the resources to thrive. It’s an investment in futures rooted in resilience and hope.