The county First Ladies Association in partnership with Non-communicable disease Alliance will roll out a milk programme bound to reach pupils from Makueni, West pokot and Grarissa in a piloting phase.
The pilot programme targets pupils in the arid and semi counties where learners are likely to suffer from non-communicable diseases-diseases that are related to poverty, and unbalanced diets.
Announcing the move, Makueni first lady Nazi Kibwana, who is the chairlady of the First Ladies Association said the initiative was geared towards eradication of non-communicable diseases and implementation of NCD strategies.
She was speaking during the head teachers meeting at Makueni Boys where the future of “start a library” program that was launched in 2016 was discussed.
Ms. Damaris Makau, Makueni County Education, and ICT Chief Officer said in the county they had already done a stakeholders meeting with various school heads to pick the most affected schools.
“We had stakeholders meeting where we made consultations on the schools to target,” said Ms. Makau.
She disclosed that they had resulted to picking Mweleli Primary School with an ECD centre in Kalawa, Mbooni Constituency and Ulilinzi Primary School located in Masongaleni, Kibwezi East constituency.
The schools are situated in the driest parts of Makueni.
Health review of the pupils will be done before distribution of the milk and after three months another review of their health will be done to ascertain any changes.
The programme will run for a span of 3 months.
According to World Health Organization statistics, 2015, unhealthy diets and physical inactivity were some of the risk factors for NCDs which contributed to 30.2 percent of all disabilities in Kenya.
