Earlier this month, a community of around 1,500 people from around the world gathered at the Skoll World Forum in Oxford to help find solutions to problems ranging from climate change to intergenerational trauma.
Organized by the foundation founded by Jeff Skoll, this year’s headliners include former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, George and Amal Clooney, and The Elders chairman Mary Robinson. But the main focus is on connecting and elevating social innovators working on the ground to bring about lasting change. Each year, a small number of organizations and their leaders win the Skoll Prize for Social Innovation for applying new and innovative ideas to solve some of the world’s most pressing and complex problems.
One of this year’s four recipients, Wawira Njiru exemplifies Skoll’s faith in entrepreneurship and confidence in putting real-world problems in the hands of local visionaries. Masu. In just eight years, Food for Education, an organization founded by Njiru based on the belief that hungry children are not learning, has used a distinctly close approach to develop school-based schools at a systems change level. It became a blueprint for providing nutrition.
entrepreneurial solutions
Nominees for the Skoll Awards for Social Innovation are social entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs working within and across five priority systems: pandemic and health system strengthening, healthy governance, inclusive economies, racial justice, and climate action. Selected from other innovators.
Foundations are not alone in finding sustainable solutions in the work of social entrepreneurs and innovators. Other prominent funders of this research include Ashoka, Gucci, and the Gates Foundation.
Criteria for winning the Skoll Prize include the potential to disrupt unequal power relationships and systemic policies and practices, modeling governance and leadership capabilities to scale operations, approaching challenges and inflection points. It includes leading proven solutions that are getting closer to. The impact of the Skoll Community Network on raising awareness and resources is also important.
Winners will receive $2 million in unrestricted funding over three years to scale their impact, as well as long-term membership in the Skoll global community of shared purpose. Since 2005, Skoll has supported over 400 of her organizations on five continents. The award runs alongside other foundation programs such as Skoll Fellows and the Skoll Global Threats Fund.
This year, three of the organizations nominated for the Skoll Award were SaveLIFE Foundation, which works to improve road safety and trauma care in India; Meedan is a technology nonprofit that creates software and programs that improve digital literacy and journalism. IllumiNative is a Native women-led organization that harnesses the power of storytelling to advance the goals of social justice, equity, and self-determination.
The fourth, Food for Education, is led by social innovator Wawira Njiru.
unconditional dignity
At the age of 21, Njiru recognized a problem that had long plagued Africa and the Global South: child hunger, and decided to do something about it.
She grew up in Kenya with parents who used the power of education to change their lives. Njiru remembers that while her playmates were hungry, she wanted to share the lunches they prepared for her. Her experience led her to believe that feeding children is not a matter of rice and beans, but of “unconditional dignity.”
Focusing on feeding children in educational settings, she brings together the two ideas of hunger and education, creating the idea of eradicating child hunger in Africa “one school meal at a time.” I tied it.
Njiru started fundraising when she was a nutrition student in Australia and took an incremental approach to growth. Her first effort raised $150,000 towards her modest goal of feeding 25 Kenyan children. Her next goal was 100 meals, then 10,000 meals. Today, the scalable combination of centralized and local operations she created has expanded to her five counties in Kenya.
Food for Education is working with the Government of Kenya to increase sustainability and support the scaling up of policies across the country. According to Njiru, the operation will replace the feeding structure, which is mainly implemented by international actors and humanitarian welfare programs.
Direct authorization
Building Food for Education is a study of philanthropy close to home.
It currently operates a combination of 18 centralized kitchens, 53 semi-centralized kitchens, and 15 decentralized kitchens, including eight recently opened in Nairobi, each serving multiple schools. We provide services. Njiru said a mix of kitchens is best to accommodate both urban and rural geographies and achieve cost efficiency. Currently, all costs are included and are less than 30 cents per meal.
Inside Humming Kitchen is a story of local economic empowerment. Mr Njiru said the organization had created more than 3,000 jobs since its inception. 74 percent of workers are women. Many are parents entering their professional careers for the first time. Payment technology allows children to access meals using wristbands, and parents can easily load mobile money for payment.
At the same time, Food for Education has built a smart supply chain and simplified distribution. Njiru said that with the exception of rice from Pakistan, all food is sourced locally from smallholder farmers through simplified distribution.
inflection point
Funding from Skoll comes at a critical inflection point. Since the first central kitchen opened in 2016, the organization has gone from serving 25 meals per day to serving 300,000 meals per day. The goal has increased from 170,000 meals the previous year to 400,000 meals, with the ultimate goal of reaching 1 million children. Njiru said he sees Squall’s support as an opportunity to build influence and growth, and is looking to expand into new countries.
In addition to Squall, Food for Education’s work has also attracted support from funders including the Mastercard Foundation, the McCall Family Foundation, Co-Impact and the Elma Foundation, a list that Njiru said will continue in the future. I hope that the number will increase as well.
Evidence that Njiru would benefit from Skoll’s community network emerged before the forum was nearing its conclusion. During a delegate-led discussion on scaling sustainable food solutions from African entrepreneurs, one question asked why Njiru had to buy rice from Pakistan. Why couldn’t it be grown in Africa and fed to African children? Another discusses the challenges involved in growing quality crops at home from a climate and soil perspective Did. Another discussed the hurdles of trade barriers between African countries. Sure, they agreed they could work together on this. System may change.
