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Nutritious School Meals Inspire Gaby to Start a Farm of His Own at Home

  • Amanda Whitmyer

on  July 25, 2024

In Ngozi, a town in northern Burundi, 13-year-old Gaby attends the eighth grade at Don Bosco Ngozi High School. Since its founding, the school has faced challenges in providing meals regularly to more than 1,000 students enrolled due to a lack of funds and the surrounding land providing insufficient quantities to feed the students.

Driven by the vision to support its students’ proper growth and development, in partnership with Rise Against Hunger, in-country partner Salesian Missions began distributing meals through its school feeding program up to three times a day. The daily meals include local ingredients and provide a balanced diet of porridge for breakfast, cassava bread for lunch and Rise Against Hunger fortified rice meals for dinner — an incentive for parents to ensure their children have access to education and meals.

These meals have improved Gaby’s health and ability to focus more at school and provide him the energy to participate in the school choir and play basketball with classmates, he explains how much he loves the rice meals above all else. “In this school, I like three things [including] the meals, the farm and the music,” he said.

Br. Gatson, head of the boarding students and educator, supports the high school students in their studies and advises them through school rules and regulations to help them excel. He says Gaby is a dedicated student who continues to thrive and has grown exceptionally by engaging in class and extracurricular activities, and he was promoted to the next class.

Since the school feeding program began, Fr. Elie, Director of Don Bosco Ngozi High School, says the distribution of meals provides a consistent source of nutrition for the students. He said, “The lives of students have changed significantly.”

The impact of the school meals has also inspired Gaby to become involved at the school’s farm, where he makes daily visits to help with the chickens and goats. He even started a small farm at home. He says, “I want to become a great farmer, able to provide for the needs of my family and other vulnerable children.”

You can help even more children like Gaby around the world pave the way towards a brighter future through access to education and a school feeding program that provides nourishing meals. Whether you’re a business, school, church or organization seeking to make an impact in the lives of people facing hunger, join the movement by hosting a Rise Against Hunger Experience. 

About the Author

Amanda Whitmyer served as the Digital Marketing Specialist at Rise Against Hunger.

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.