6,000 free lunches

Students in the Solwezi and Kalumbila Districts in Zambia’s North-Western Province have been receiving a free school lunch each day under a First Quantum-backed attendance program. We are committed to improving access to education for the communities that surround us. Throughout our decades-long history in Zambia, we have invested over US$70 million in education. We have built school buildings, delivered desks and donated more than 100,000 textbooks.

Increasing attendance
However, we have found that, despite our best intentions in providing additional resources to schools, resources alone do not improve outcomes for children. Student attendance is one key factor that determines educational attainment. We are currently investing US$45,000 every month to provide nutritious meal supplements every school day for 6,000 school students in North-West Province. The school lunch program provides has been credited with raising average attendance rates among local students from 64% to 87%.

Nourishment and learning
Better nourishment is also helping children learn better – literacy scores at the 86 participating schools are about 50 per cent above national benchmarks. We’ve also added another dimension to the community impact of the lunch program: instead of importing meal components from as far away as South Africa, our provider will be using food supplied by First Quantum’s conservation farming initiative. This means students’ lunches will include produce grown by their neighbors and even their own families – it’s this kind of self-sufficiency we aim to foster in all our mine communities. And for young people, it’s a lesson in how various efforts can be combined to make communities more sustainable.