German Africa Prize goes to Kenyan social entrepreneur

The German Africa Foundation (DAS) is presenting the German Africa Prize to Wawira Njiru — a woman whose initiative has transformed schools meals throughout Kenya .

In the beginning, Njiru started by feeding a regular meal to 25 schoolchildren; at that time, she was only a student with a dream to scale up her operation and provide a daily meal to 100 children.

Today, her work reaches more than 660,000 children at over 1,900 schools across Kenya.

Through her social enterprise, Food4Education (F4E), Njiru has "transformed a charitable idea into a functioning school-feeding system that reaches children, engages families, and strengthens local economic cycles," said Claus Stäcker, chair of the independent Africa Prize jury and director ofprograms for Africa at Deutsche Welle (DW), which serves as the media partner of the annual event.

Stäcker referred to the F4E approach as "an African solution to a global problem," adding that in honoring her out of "dozens of outstanding individuals," the German Africa Foundation jury had "once again recognized an extraordinary young woman, who tenaciously pursues her dreams and convictions, serving as an example for thousands of committed and innovative Africans."

School meals in Kenya typically rely on a combination of funding: Parents cover part of the costs, which are supplemented by donations and government funds.

With F4E, that model extends to including local sources: about 80% of the food distributed by the organization comes from small-scale farmers.

This way, school meals are freshly sourced — and farmers have a reliable market for selling their produce.