Beans Means Brains is a project run by Sustainable Communities Network (UK) Charity No. 1109945
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A school lunch programme to improve the education, health and life chances of Ugandan children
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About Beans Means Brains
Beans Means Brains is a small, very effective project which makes a practical and significant positive difference to the lives of over 650 children each day.
It began when the Head Teacher of Buhumba Primary School, Asuman Kirarira, approached local project, Byoona Amagara, where I was staying for a short visit prior to spending 7 months there as a volunteer, starting September 2005. I was impressed by his motivation and determination to improve the school and therefore took up the challenge of helping to make the project happen.
Every day, up to a quarter of the school’s pupils would be absent in the afternoon, and those who were present were inattentive and distracted. What was the cause of this? Simply, hunger. Many of the missing children had headed home at lunchtime in search of lunch and had been sent to work in the fields or look after the animals instead of returning to school. Less than a third of those who remained in school brought any kind of packed lunch, so the majority were going all day with NOTHING to eat. When you consider that school starts at 7.30 a.m. and continues until 4.30 p.m, that many children will also have had no breakfast AND may have to walk an hour to and from school, it is easy to see why learning was the last thing on their minds.
Head Teacher Asuman Kirarira with David Renton (SCN (UK) founder) in front of the cow horns erected to commemorate the beginning of the lunch programme at Buhumba.