An Outcomes Evaluation of the School Feeding Project Implemented By Caritas Zimbabwe at Chirongwe Primary School, Masvingo Province

This report is an outcomes evaluation of Caritas Zimbabwe’s school feeding project which was implemented at Chirongwe Primary School in Masvingo Province. The school feeding project ran for approximately nine months from November 2015 to July2016 and has been designed as an emergency response to the drought that was threatening the lives of many rural schools feeding project managed to change lives of its clients, treatment effectiveness, lessons learnt and to generate recommendations to improve Caritas’s emergency response in future. This report is a result of field research which involved fifty-three respondents in the project site and other important stakeholder. The selection process of beneficiaries was highly inclusive. Local stakeholders were effectively engaged in planning and implementation. It was quite evident that the project managed to save lives and alleviate suffering through improving access to food. Clear impacts directly attributed to the project were increase in enrolment, high attendance rate by school pupils, improved staff motivation, higher achievements and in class and more time spent at school by both teachers and pupils. However, areas of improvement included: (i) monitoring and evaluation aspects of the project (ii) insufficient technical expertise-as was noted only one field officer was responsible for carrying out all the field activities of the project (iii) reaching out for instance there is a need to cater for the nutritional requirements of the physical weak pupils such as the sick and those infected with HIV and AIDS