Between 1996 and 2002, civil war and epidemics of cholera, malaria, and HIV/AIDS devastated western Uganda's Kasese district, creating a generation of orphaned street children. While political conditions have now stabilized, overwhelmed government agencies have been unable to provide basic necessities such as food, clean water, and education to many of these children, estimated to make up as much as 17% of the population.

With neither families nor social services to help them, the children exist as wild scavengers, with little hope of developing into healthy, productive adults. In 2004 the Kikimu Agriculture Research Centre (KARC) launched the African Ark Preparatory School on an acre of land in Nyakasanga Umoja, an urban slum in Kasese to help these orphans. The school's mission was to improve the lives of 200-250 vulnerable children from grades 1-5 through education. The program included a morning snack, but that wasn't enough to assuage their gnawing hunger.

"Without lunch," says KARC Executive Director Kule Noah, "they suffer with hunger during afternoon classes." Ultimately, he says, most of them drop out of school, returning to the streets in search of food. "When children lack food during their early years," he says, "it affects their growth and health."

The Prem Rawat Foundation (TPRF) has donated $16,500 to KARC to cover the cost of nutritious lunches for about 200 children for a year. It will also fund the purchase of 5,000-liter plastic containers to harvest rainwater in this arid region, providing them with clean drinking water. The provision of nourishing food and clean water, Noah says, will allow KARC to succeed in its goal to nurture and protect these vulnerable children in a peaceful and enjoyable environment.