The Work We Do
The Mozambique School Lunch Initiative is a non-profit organization that provides nutritious school meals to children attending rural primary schools in Mozambique. Our aim is to reduce childhood malnutrition and increase school participation.
Our model invests in smallholder farmers to build local agricultural capacity. In this way, we build up local supply chains, providing farmers access to investment and new markets. In doing so, our vision is to gain traction between farming households and rural schools to create a community-owned school feeding program–increasing our sustainability and addressing food security through a holistic approach. Our program also integrates low-cost interventions such as deworming and iron supplementation to maximize the impact of the school meals on children’s nutrition.
School Lunches
Farmer Groups
Complimentary Interventions
Our Work
school nutrition
We serve locally-sourced school meals in primary schools in rural Mozambique where many children run the risk of malnutrition and dropping out of school. For many children, this is their first and main meal of the day.
Our Menu
Just five school meals per week provides:

Our menu was designed to fit local tastes as well as meet key nutritional needs as advised by certified nutritionists consulting for our organization. This includes chicken, beans, peanut sauce, vegetables, rice and maize porridge.

With these school meals, we have observed significant improvements in child nutrition and school participation. Teachers say that their students no longer miss classes, show up on time, and are able to concentrate better. In our most recently-added school, we saw enrollment increase by 30% after we started the school lunch program.

Incentives
School lunches are a huge incentive for four reasons:
  • They encourage parents to send their younger children to school earlier, resulting in fewer delayed starts.
  • They help keep girls in school, rather than being married early.
  • They keep young boys going to school rather than dropping out to heard goats.
  • Students can focus on what they're learning and not on their empty stomachs!