From 25 children to 660,000: Wawira Njiru's school kitchens just won the German Africa Prize

When Wawira Njiru started Food4Education in 2012, she was cooking for 25 schoolchildren in Kenya. On November 4 in Berlin, she will receive the 2026 German Africa Prize for what that small kitchen became: a programme now feeding more than 660,000 learners in over 1,900 schools, with more than 200 million meals served. About 80% of the food comes from local smallholder farmers, who gain a reliable buyer, and the work has created more than 6,000 jobs — many for women and young people — across kitchens, logistics and food safety. Its solar- and steam-powered Giga Kitchen in Nairobi and its Tap2Eat payment platform show the model can grow; the next goal is one million children fed daily by 2027.

SDG 2 · Zero hunger — Mechanism: institutional program