More than a meal: The breakfast that keeps Chandy in school

At 13, Chandy’s morning might look familiar to any mom watching her own daughter get ready for school. She wakes up, gets dressed and heads out the door.

But there’s one part of her routine that’s different from what it used to be: instead of her mom rushing to cook something before she leaves, Chandy walks to her school in Kampong Thom province, Cambodia, where a warm bowl of vegetable soup is already waiting for her.

It wasn’t always this way.

Chandy lives in a low-income farming community, where many families can’t afford to send their kids to school with breakfast, let alone lunch. For too many children here, an empty stomach means an empty desk.

“Some parents don’t cook for their children because they are busy at the field,” Chandy’s mom explains. She adds, “Or some of my neighbors’ children dropped school.”

What’s keeping kids out of school?

Poverty is the underlying cause of child hunger—not just in Cambodia but around the world. It forces parents to make difficult choices about which essential to cut just to survive: nutritious food, clean water, healthcare or education.

In rural Cambodia, where Chandy lives, the government’s poverty line is set at less than $3 CAD per person, per day.

For parents barely making ends meet, options are limited. Sending their kids to school with empty stomachs means they won’t have the energy to:

• Concentrate in class: it’s hard to hear the teacher when your stomach is constantly growling.

• Keep up with their homework: lack of nutrition can cause delayed cognitive development in children.

• Participate in extracurricular activities: why prolong your day at school when you can barely make it through class?

• Play with their friends: hunger has a way of stealing childhood.

• Keep showing up: constant fatigue and illness keep kids out of school.

But if parents keep them home to save money, they’ll lose their education altogether. Either way, the child goes hungry—not just for food, but also for future opportunities.

The move that made a difference

Chandy’s life changed when her family moved to a new community where students receive a free breakfast at school every day. For Chandy, this was more than a free meal—it was an opportunity to finish her education and help her family rise above poverty one day.

Improving students’ access to education, food and good health is exactly what World Vision hoped to achieve by creating the School Feeding Programme in partnership with the provincial government. Through the School Feeding Programme, 295 schools across 10 districts now report:

• An increase in overall attendance now that students are healthier.

• Students who are attentive and focused on learning.

• More students returning to school and less students dropping out.

• More parents are realizing the value of their children completing their education.

It’s not just families who’ve noticed the difference. “This school meal breakfast contains vegetables and promotes the health of students,” says Sakorn, director of Chandy’s school. Meals now rotate through six different dishes a week, he explains, so kids don’t get tired of eating the same thing.

Sakorn has proposed expanding the program to more schools across the country. Breakfast, he says, is necessary for every student—and it doesn’t just help kids learn. It helps ease poverty for their families.

Chandy’s mom agrees about the benefits of the School Feeding Programme. “It’s no longer a difficulty because the school provides breakfast,” she says. “It could save money and make my daughter healthy.”

Nourished at last

Thanks to school meals, Chandy’s diet now contains a variety of vegetables to keep her full throughout the day. Studies show that a diet containing a variety of nutrients is crucial to support:

• Physical growth of bones and muscles.

• Healthy brain development.

• Stronger immune systems.

• Stamina so kids can play and stay active.

“[I] like to eat mixed vegetable soup at my school at breakfast, as it helps me to be healthy,” Chandy shares. “So, I could have a strong body and a brilliant brain.”

Ask Chandy what she’d cook if she could, and she doesn’t hesitate: sour soup and fried rice, “because fried rice has vegetables, carrots and beans.” It’s a small, ordinary answer, the kind any 13-year-old might give about their favourite meal. But for Chandy, that ordinary answer is only possible because breakfast is no longer something to worry about.

It’s also given her big ideas. “If I became Prime Minister,” she imagines, “I would sponsor rice, vegetables, fish, meat, eggs, salt and cooking oil, and I would support two meals for students—because lunch makes students less hungry while studying and makes learning smooth.” In her mind, it’s simple: kids who aren’t hungry can focus, learn faster and save their families money.

Chandy’s mom agrees. “I propose that the school continues providing school meals for all students.”

Chandy’s story is just one of thousands like it across Cambodia. Behind every full plate is a parent who can stop worrying, and a child who gets to stay in school, dream bigger and simply be a kid. That’s what’s possible when a community has what it needs—and Canadians like you can make that a reality.

Help meet a child’s essential needs

World Vision’s School Feeding Programme has already helped provide daily breakfast to more than 80,271 students across Chandy’s province—proof that this approach works and that it’s already changing lives like hers.

A gift to Where Most Needed doesn’t go toward one single thing—it goes to wherever kids need it most, whether that’s a school breakfast, clean water, healthcare or a teacher’s training. That flexibility means your support can respond to what a child actually needs, not just for today, but for the future.

Every gift counts, whether you give once or make a monthly donation, starting at $19. With you, we can go further, reach more families and communities, and help more kids experience life in all its fullness.