March 3, 2021
Kids Compassion Charity has heeded the clarion call of the President Julius Maada Bio for private sector partnering to buttress the flagship free quality education project.
Founder and Chief Executive Officer Mustapha Idriss Yaguba Cole says they have been engaged in school feeding program in the western rural Godreich communities targeting five schools. The charity foundation operates on the mantra that a “sound mind resides in a sound body.”
At least of four hundred pupils are provided two rounds of food breakfast and lunch twice a week, Monday and Thursday. The food provided is nutritionally sensitive and certified by the school authorities.
“Sometimes we give the hot tea and bread in the morning, cooked rice and nice sauce at lunch and sometimes vegetables are also added to the feeding regimen,” Cole disclosed to A-Z Newspaper.
Kids Charity Compassion has been operating for the past twelve years and targets indigent kids attending government schools.
He says they believe that with one hundred dollars one can send a kid to school and school feeding is strategy for kids retention in schools.
He said the have been targeting primary schools from the range of class one to class six, within the age bracket of five to twelve years.
Asked about the source of the funding, Cole said they have a couple of international donor partners that are interested in what they are doing and have been supporting their initiatives after designing project proposal.
He admits that such funding stream is not enough especially at this time of COVID 19 of donor fatigue and they have decided to look around for alternative resource mobilization from government and the private sector.
He disclosed their effectiveness in the venture has been enhanced by technology, using applications that can create global philanthropic funding access.
“Once we even invited the First Lady to our programs but because of her competing engagements she was not able to attend but we were however elated to have as guest a representative from the Ministry of Education. We still look forward to future engagements with government so that we can broaden the scope of the support,” Cole says.
He envisions a situation where more kids can benefit from the scheme when more local philanthropists can find traction in the process of touching more lives.
Long term sustainability, he added will be founded when the government embraces the Kids Compassion Charity as partner in a well-meaning venture that assures promising future to young people beyond the five schools that they dealing with currently.