Smiling Children Feeding Program in Ethiopia (CFPA.ORG.CN)

As an ancient Chinese proverb goes, “Amity between the people holds the key to sound state-to-state relations.” The secrets of keeping sound relations between countries lie not only in close ties between governments, but, more importantly, exchanges among the people. This can be well illustrated by the projects launched by the China-Africa People’s Forum (CAPF) in the past 10 years.

On November 15, the sixth meeting of the CAPF was organized in Beijing. Government and political leaders, envoys, representatives from non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and scholars from China and more than 30 African countries participated in the forum online and offline, discussing China-Africa people-to-people cooperation and exchanges in the coming three years.

Chinese President Xi Jinping sent a congratulatory letter to the forum. “The world today is an era of great development and great changes. Facing new opportunities and challenges, China and Africa, more than ever, need to uphold and advocate peace, development, equity, justice, democracy and freedom, which are the common values of humanity, enhance solidarity and cooperation, jointly promote prosperity and development, and jointly build a community with a shared future for humanity,” said Xi in the letter.

Xi called for joint efforts from China and Africa to make the forum a medium to strengthen bilateral comprehensive strategic and cooperative partnership and a bridge to enhance people-to-people relations between the two sides.

Ji Bingxuan, Vice Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress of China, described the friendship between China and Africa as “rocksolid.”

“On the platform of CAPF, we let the people to think about, decide and implement China-Africa cooperation projects. This is the original intention behind the launch of the forum, as well as the impetus pushing the platform forward,” he said.

“We are very pleased to see that China is laying the groundwork for a new international order by proposing new development concepts on various key issues such as climate change, COVID-19 response, as well as environmental protection,” Martin Mbazumutima, Ambassador of Burundi to China, said at the forum.

The forum also announced 60 China-Africa cooperation projects that are to be implemented in the coming three years. Most of them are for improvement of people’s livelihood through people-to-people engagement and NGOs.

Welfare of children

Mapping out cooperation projects is an important part of every CAPF meeting. In the Program for China-Africa People-to-People Friendship and Partnership (2018-20) adopted at the Fifth CAPF in 2018 in Chengdu, capital of southwest China’s Sichuan Province, a total of 30 projects were announced. Sources from the CAPF indicate that all the projects have been implemented by the end of 2020.

The Smiling Children Feeding Program launched by the China Foundation for Poverty Alleviation in Ethiopia and Sudan was one of the 30 cooperation projects.

Actually, the Smiling Children Feeding Program was launched in May 2015 in Ethiopia and had been running for more than three years before it was put under the umbrella of the CAPF cooperation program.

Aiming at solving the hunger problem faced by children from poor families in developing and underdeveloped countries, this project selected schools in impoverished areas in different parts of the two countries and provided school meals or distributed food to students. In addition, the foundation also hired students’ mothers in selected schools to cook meals, helping them to gain employment and ensure food safety and nutrition.

In Ethiopia alone, the program provides meals in six public schools with nearly 8,000 students in Addis Ababa, Oromia and Somali regions.

This project has proven to be a success. A mid-term survey conducted in 2018 shows that in all academic years, the weight of beneficiary students exceeded students without school meals by an average of 6.12 kg (female) and 5.9 kg (male). Many drop-out students returned to school and the drop-out rate decreased.

Due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, many schools in Ethiopia closed and the Smiling Children Feeding Program could no longer go on. In this context, impoverished children could no longer get school meals. In addition, the pandemic directly impacted their family income, threatening their daily life.

To solve the problem, the China Foundation for Poverty Alleviation changed the project to Smiling Children Food Distributing Program to distribute free food supplies to poor students.

“With the help of this aid, we don’t have to worry about our children’s health. We had problems providing adequate food and academic materials to our children,” said Osman Adam, whose son is a third grader at the Obaay Primary School, located in the Dukem Town in Ethiopia’s Oromia Regional State.

“All our programs are supported by the Chinese people. It is people-to-people connectivity; it is from the ordinary Chinese people,” said Huang Xiaocen, Deputy Director of CAPF Ethiopia.

African students learn midwifery at a training session of the Angel of Life for Africa program (COURTESY)

Making mothers safe

The CAPF not only includes projects that take place in African countries, but also invites African people to China for projects. The midwifery training program called Angel of Life for Africa, launched in Wenzhou Medical University in east China’s Zhejiang Province, is included into the CAPF Program for China-Africa People-to-People Friendship and Partnership and is expected to increase the project size in the coming three years. This project aims to reduce the maternal mortality during childbirth and improve the infant survival rate in Africa by training more midwives to meet the international standards. After training, these midwives return to home countries to help more families.

The first two terms of the program were held in 2018 and 2019. A total of 40 African students who studied in China and medical workers in some African countries attended a two-week training course.

According to United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund, Sub-Saharan Africans suffer from the highest maternal mortality ratio - 533 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births, or 200,000 maternal deaths a year. This is over two-thirds of all maternal deaths per year worldwide.

“I was so surprised to know that the maternal mortality in African countries is much higher than other places. I believe China can lend experiences to African countries in this regard. That’s why I worked so hard to make this project happen,” said Dong Qixin, Executive Director of Beijing Ambridge International Cultural Exchange Ltd.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the training course was suspended in 2020 and 2021. “As the project is now included in the CAPF, we will resume it in next year and the training course will be prolonged to three months,” said Dong.

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