It was a huge moment for one, Anne Wawira Njiru, a human nutritionist, businesswoman, entrepreneur and philanthropist from Kenya as she was yesterday awarded with the 2018 Global Citizen Prize for Youth Leadership.
The Global Citizen Prize for Youth Leadership is award that honours an individual aged between 18-30 years who has contributed meaningfully towards the goal of ending global poverty. The award includes a $250,000 prize paid to the organization to which the individual contributes.
Congratulations to @wawiranjiru for winning the 2018 Global Citizen Prize for Youth Leadership by @Cisco presented by @Usher and Cisco CEO @ChuckRobbins.
Wawira is an exceptional young woman whose @Food4education programme is bettering thousands of lives 🇰🇪 ⭕ pic.twitter.com/FlGXnSJVwC
— Global Citizen (@GlblCtzn) December 2, 2018
Wawira was yesterday awarded by American singer-songwriter, Usher and Cisco CEO, Chuck Robbins for being an exceptional young woman who through her organization, Food 4 Education, has managed to better the lives of thousands of young people.
At only 27 years old, Wawira serves as the Executive Director of Food 4 Education, a non-profit organization that works with vulnerable children in Kenyan public schools to improve their lives through providing subsidized, nutritious school lunches.
Wawira has been recognised as a Nutrition champion and a Hunger-Free Ambassador. In 2016, she was also selected as one of 25 young Africans Leading in Public Life by the University of Cape Town and in 2017 as one of 16 participants of the Global Social Benefit Institute Accelerator Program run by the Miller Centre at Santa Clara University.
She is also a 2018 Rainer Arnhold Fellow, a recipient of the Builders of Africa Award 2018 and was selected as one of 2018’s Top 40 under 40 women in Kenya.
She is a Stanford school scholar and the recipient of the University of South Australia’s Alumni Award 2017.
With her Food For Education Programme, the organization sources for fresh food directly from farmers and uses a central kitchen model to deliver nutritious, heavily subsidised meals to students in urban public primary schools.
To cover the cost of subsidies, they use profits from a social enterprise food business, Double Portion, which offers healthy, affordable and local food to corporates and private institutions.
Miss Njiru’s ultimate vision is to create a model that the Kenyan government can adopt. Her dream is that the government will one day support local communities in growing their own food for students.
“I wish we could go into every person’s home and make sure that the kids have a really safe environment and an opportunity to have food every day, but we can’t. What we can do is make schools, which are central places, safe places where they can access food every time they want, and where they can even grow their own food. That would be a really great thing,” said Wawira.
What do you think the government can do to create an environment where vulnerable children have access to meals while in school?