As she tells the children to be quiet, nursery teacher Zenebu Araya, 24, stretches out her arms and crosses them with emphasis. About half of the 52 children in the room mimic the action, folding their slim arms as they sit at colourful, plastic tables. Soon they start chatting again, like all four- to six-year-olds. But Ms Araya smiles, happy to have a class of active, healthy children.
‘During the war, most of the children didn’t have any access to education,’ she says. ‘Some children were separated from their mothers because they had to flee suddenly. But these children are in a very good situation here.’
In Tigray, a region in northern Ethiopia, only 36 per cent of pre-primary-age children are enrolled in a Class 0, the local name for pre-schools, which are based in primary schools. This is because a two-year military operation launched by the Ethiopian Federal Government against the region’s ruling party, The Tigray People’s Liberation Front, has severely damaged education.
An estimated 600,000 people died, and about 2.5 million were forced to flee their homes. Enrolment rates at primary schools (grades 1 to 8) are marginally better at 47 per cent, while at secondary level, only 20 per cent of children have returned.
The region has struggled to recover since the war ended in November 2022. Tigray Education Bureau data shows more than three-quarters of schools were damaged. There were 2,221 primary schools before the conflict began. Missiles struck some, while invading forces turned others into military bases and destroyed them. About 15,000 teachers are missing, having fled to other areas or been killed. Before reopening schools, authorities had to clear mines.
To make matters worse, Tigray is experiencing its worst drought in 40 years. About 80 per cent of the population are farmers who depend on harvesting crops. Tigray’s Interim Regional Administration has warned that 91 per cent of the population is at ‘risk of starvation’.
FOOD AID
Hunger has pushed thousands of children to drop out of school. The Tigray Education Bureau estimates a quarter of all schools are on the verge of closure because of food shortages. Pupils do not have the energy to walk to school, or cannot concentrate if they attend. Parents keep their children home to beg or forage for wild berries.
But at Beati Akor Primary School in northern Tigray, where Ms Araya teaches, children are flocking to classes. There are so many attending Class 0 – 274 in total – that the school runs two sessions a day across four classes. The children come because this school provides daily hot meals, thanks to a programme funded by British charity Mary’s Meals International (MMI).
Before the charity began the feeding programme from 2018, it had 580 students. This increased to 792 by 2020 when war broke out. The conflict made it impossible to deliver the food, but since feeding restarted in 2023, the number of pupils has leapt to 1,177.
‘School participation and performance has completely changed since Mary’s Meals started feeding here,’ says school principal Tsagay Xnehari. Sitting in the staff office, surrounded by worn furniture, he points out cracks in the walls caused by shelling, but also draws attention to a shelf displaying trophies. ‘Before the feeding intervention, we were the lowest-performing school in our area,’ he says. ‘Since then we have won many awards. We are the top school now.’
EAT TO LEARN
At the beginning of each session, Ms Araya and her colleagues usher Class 0 pupils into lines in the school’s large grounds. The children wait patiently under pine trees, full of chirruping birds. They look expectantly towards a small building, inside which volunteer cooks in matching aprons and hair covers stir giant pots of bubbling porridge with long, wooden sticks. The women are just visible in a cloud of smoke pouring off the open fires. By the entrance stands a table piled with plastic bowls and spoons.
The children wash their hands under a water canister, then take their utensils and, one by one, receive a serving of Famix – a cereal blend fortified with micronutrients. Usually, MMI serves locally grown food, to invest in the community, but because of the drought it has organised food to be imported from elsewhere in Ethiopia.
The toddlers carefully carry their dishes to a sheltered area, where they sit on stones. One stumbles and spills the steaming mixture, but he still has plenty left to eat. This may be the only meal some children eat all day, Ms Araya says, but adds that even so, the children look healthier now. ‘They are playing actively and complete their exercises because of the feeding,’ she says.
The volume of the children’s voices after they have eaten certainly suggests they are energetic. When I visit the classroom, the children stand immediately to sing a shrill welcome song. Ms Araya then calls Muchet, a five-year-old, to the front of the room. He confidently belts out a song in Tigrayan, with the class chanting the lines in turn. ‘I use a pencil to write. If I make a mistake, I can correct it!’ he trills. When he finishes, everyone claps heartily.
Ms Araya explains the teaching approach in Class 0 is a mixture of group learning indoors and active learning outside. The school is facing a shortage of teaching resources, so she has decorated the large classroom with hand-made posters.
They show words in Tigrayan for family members, the five senses, body parts and colours. ‘We focus in the English ABC, the Tigrayan alphabet and numbers,’ she says. Ms Araya has written letters on colourful sheets of paper and hung them like bunting from the rafters. In the middle of the room is a mat.
Ms Araya calls children in groups to come to the centre and arrange letter tiles in the correct alphabetical order. When the class goes outside, Ms Araya uses small stones to practise counting, or draws letters in the dusty earth with a stick. ‘I also make the shape of the letters with my body!’ she explains. Her easy, warm manner is clearly loved by the children, who watch her attentively. She has taught for two years since completing a certificate in teaching. To teach in primary school, teachers must finish a degree.
HOPE FOR THE FUTURE
The MMI model depends on working in partnership with communities. It provides food and resources, but successful delivery requires the local community to manage the project, source volunteer cooks, and ensure the food is stored correctly and securely.
The Beati Akor school committee, made up of parents, has adapted the model to extend support to families particularly affected by the war. It selected women in need to be cooks, and asked the community to provide a small salary of 1,500 Ethiopian birr (£20) each month.
One of the cooks is mother to three pupils: 14-year-old Embza Gebreanania and his two younger brothers. Both her husband and eldest son were killed in the war, leaving her to raise them, as well as two more daughters. Embza says he lost hope during the war, but feels better now he is back at school. ‘We had a lot of problems in our house – we didn’t have sufficient food,’ he says. ‘This is a huge support for us.’
MMI founder and CEO Magnus MacFarlane-Barrow says the meals are not just helping meet children’s nutritional needs but also keep ‘the hope of a better future alive’. His organisation has operated in Tigray since 2017. It reached 24,000 children in 36 schools before the war. But with current needs so high, MMI has stepped up its school feeding programmes to reach 114,000 pupils at 223 schools – more than any other charity or global development agency in the region.
‘Malnutrition often impairs a child’s development in ways that can never be recovered later in life – so these meals provide long-term health benefits,’ MacFarlane-Barrow says. ‘There remains an urgent need to reach the many thousands of children who remain hungry and unable to learn.’
The morning session ends at one o’clock. Ms Araya leads the children across the site to the school gate. It hangs open, off its hinge, and the children walk out down the dusty track towards their village.
Ms Araya says her classes are very crowded, but she knows how important it is for young children to eat and learn. ‘They need this additional support,’ she says. ‘We are telling local parents: send your children to school.’
