Help Hungry Kids Achieve Their Dreams Like Marathoner Paul Tergat

A simple nutritious meal provided to children from the time they are born through their school years can lift them out of a life of poverty. WFP works to make this possible.

Having a good meal every day at school gives children the strength and education to realize their dreams.

One ‘WFP Kid’, Paul Tergat, achieved his dream to become a world-class marathon runner. School meals not only gave Paul the energy to concentrate in school, but to run there and back. Among many other championships, Paul has two Olympic silver medals for the men’s 10,000 meter races.

Now Paul is a WFP Ambassador Against Hunger and works to support the same school feeding programs that helped him achieve success.

Other ‘WFP Kids’ grew up to be journalists, mountain climbers, humanitarians, teachers, drivers, aid workers, and Olympians. Some students are well on their way.

• Many times 7-year-old Vera Tavares went to school hungry. But, having school meals every day made it possible for her to grow up to be an accountant for the Minister of Education in Cape Verde.

• Polio and poverty meant Apollinaire Gahungu had a difficult start to life, but he graduated head of his class at his WFP-supported school. After a successful career as a journalist, he is a communications specialist for the Embassy of South Africa.

• Fatuma, a 16-year-old refugee from Somalia, fought her way out of Africa’s biggest refugee camp and into one of Africa’s best girls’ schools. Fatuma remembers how having porridge in school helped her study to win the scholarship. She dreams of becoming a doctor.

WFP offers comprehensive and effective programs that reach families and children where help is needed most: before birth with prenatal high-nutrition food for mothers, food for a child’s early years, and for students with meals at school.

“School children around the world must have the opportunity to pursue their dreams,” Paul says.

Please join Paul and so many others who care about hungry children everywhere and support WFP’s programs to ensure children are healthy and have the futures they desire.

Discover Paul and Vera’s dreams and how WFP helped them.

Watch this video about Paul: http://www.wfp.org/videos/paul-tergat

Watch this video about Vera:  http://www.wfp.org/videos/vera-goes-school