Young, single mothers are often sent from the family home to fend for themselves. They miss the cooking lessons of mothers and grandmothers. Earning $1.50/day as a field worker means their food budget is wholly insufficient. Children can grow stunted with lasting consequences. For nine years we have been improving the nutrition of preschool kids. The mothers of 12 kids determined by Community Health Workers to be malnourished join a cooking school once a month for six months to learn to cook nutritious, inexpensive meals and return home with a sack of ingredients. The kids are measured each month and always achieve a healthy weight.
Another way to add calories to the daily diets of kids whose mothers must do field work was to open a nursery school. We opened two schools with a total of about a hundred 3 to 5 year olds and provide a big mug of porridge in the middle of their five hour stay. Their mothers are deeply grateful seeing them fed in mind and body.
For most of them it is their first time to hold a book or play with a toy. They delight in learning songs, group games as well as the building blocks that will give them a solid start in primary school in a year or two.