The Tiger Brands Foundation’s Breakfast-feeding Scheme

The Tiger Brands Foundation (TBF) has identified the need for a programme that addresses the needs of the most important meal of the day for school children; breakfast. Too many learners across the country arrive at school without having had breakfast while school feeding schemes only provide a meal at lunchtime and the children may not eat until the following school meal. The TBF is of the belief that by funding and supporting a breakfast-feeding scheme, learners will be better nourished, resulting in improved school performance, growth and development.

The Project - Phase 1

The Tiger Brands Foundation has developed and successfully implemented a first phase breakfast feeding programme at thirteen primary schools, of which the majority are in Alexandra Township (JHB). The breakfast feeding scheme incorporated upgrading kitchen facilities, nutrition education, skills development, job creation, community development and feeding the learners a nutritious breakfast. Prior to implementation, TBF identified a number of challenges to the success of the project and identified the need for timeous access to reliable, accurate information from which reports could be drawn to provide feedback to all stakeholders and reinforce accountability throughout the value chain. Listed in order of priority, requirements included:

• In-field registration of children
• In-field recording of attendance
• Daily activities reporting
• Distribution issue reporting
• Other on-site issues
• Distributor performance
• Food handler performance
• School monitor performance

Mobenzi Researcher was embedded within the operational structure of the project in order to address these challenges.

 

Mobenzi Implementation

Handsets with Mobenzi Researcher were provided to each school monitor, whose role is to collect data on a daily basis using the Mobenzi Researcher application. Three forms were created for the collection of information in-field.

• School Monitor Report – data regarding the daily operation of the kitchen at the school.
• Distribution report – details of deliveries made to each of the locations.
• Incident Report – incidents are logged by both school monitors and drivers to allow the TBF project manager to respond immediately to issues as they arise.
• Management Report – the management report allows the management team to compile reports on the progress of the project, high level issues.

Following on from a presentation to the Department of Education’s Head of Nutrition regarding the value provided by Mobenzi to the project, the Foundation was asked to include an additional form to report on the DoE lunch feeding program.

 

Mobenzi continues to function as a cornerstone of the TBF feeding program and has provided critical data to motivate the scaling up of the project for a national rollout.

The Project - Phase 2

Following the successful initial implementation of the project, TBF plans to extend it to additional schools (over 60 schools in 2013), more than doubling the project size. Ultimately, the vision is to extend the project to a national level and leverage the capabilities of the Mobenzi Outreach platform to further enhance the visibility and operational processes of the project.