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School Meals Help Chu Dream Big in Vietnam

on  August 7, 2026

Chu is a smiley, sweet 5-year-old girl with big dreams. But growing up in a community affected by food insecurity and economic instability used to make those dreams more difficult to imagine.

Chu lives with her sister and relatives in a small village in the Tra Tan Commune, a mountainous region near Da Nang City, Vietnam. The area is strongly affected by tropical monsoons, creating a prolonged rainy season. The heavy rain often causes landslides and transportation disruptions among the steep terrain. The dry season also comes with challenges, as hot temperatures lead to periods of water scarcity.  These climate extremes impact communities throughout the region. Most residents rely on agriculture and livestock farming for their livelihoods, but the climate hinders economic security and infrastructure. 

With limited employment opportunities in the village, Chu’s parents had to find jobs far from home in southern Vietnam and her grandmother became her primary caretaker. But her grandmother doesn’t always have enough money to provide diverse meals that meet Chu’s nutritional needs. 

Chu is one of 186 children attending Vanh Khuyen Kindergarten, which operates nine satellite campuses throughout the region. Students across all nine campuses receive daily Rise Against Hunger meals, distributed by our in-country partner Children of Vietnam. “I find [the food] delicious, and it makes me happy,” Chu said.

At the beginning of the school year, Chu was underweight and visibly thin. Within just three months of receiving the meals, she had gained weight and teachers reported she was healthier and more confident.  

Health has improved throughout the student population. According to Hai, the school’s vice principal, malnutrition among the children decreased by 11.2% from September to December 2025 as a result of the feeding program. 

School attendance and community knowledge have also improved. The school hosts parent meetings where the teachers share information about the meals and nutrition. This has built trust throughout the community, leading to more parents regularly sending their children to school. 

With reliable access to nutritious meals that support her health and education, Chu has the opportunity to play, learn and dream about her future. “I want to become a teacher to teach younger children, just like my teacher at school,” she said. 

Every child deserves the chance to learn, grow and dream. With your support, Rise Against Hunger is helping make that possible — one meal, one classroom and one child at a time. Give today to help more children like Chu gain not only the nourishment they need today, but the opportunity to build the future they imagine tomorrow.

About the Author

Hannah Payne is the Public Relations & Communications Manager at Rise Against Hunger. She facilitates communication between Rise Against Hunger and the media.

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.