In the weeks leading up to establishing the project at Mangamba we undertook additional research to try and determine the long-term impact of our first school-feeding programme. We worked closely with Wahab Issae, the Regional Educational Officer (REO) in Mtwara, who gave suggestions of how we could analyse the children and carried out simple cognitive tests on forty students, using staff from his office. This test required children to repeat a pattern set by those conducting the tests (see right), touching wooden blocks in the same order. This test benefits from being more like a game than a test. Following this the same group of forty students completed a maths test written by the REO. After a year’s breakfasts it will be interesting to compare the test level with these same students and to apply the test to additional students.
Following the tests we weighed and measured the height of the forty students. We now have a small group that we can analyse at a later date, to try and discover the impact of the school-feeding programme on their physical and mental development. Furthermore by recording the physical characteristics of each child, it has become clear that their height-weight ratios are rather skewed, perhaps owing to a lack of food. The REO also gave Breakfast Club de-worming tablets to give to every student at Mangamba since, as he indicated, “we want the children and not the worms to eat the food”. We firmly believe that a strong research base is very important for the success of any project and hope that everything we have done prior to starting the project will be beneficial for years to come.