Mpambara Cox Foundation Inc

"Project 190" has shown great promise as a concrete way to improve student health and school attendance for Africans in rural primary schools. The net effect of the improvements means that education becomes more effective for those who stay in school, helping to lift people and their communities out of poverty and thereby directly impacting Millenium Development Goals #1 - 4 in one simple program. "Project 190" works so well because parents will see to it that their children attend school if they are assured of a meal, and the children will then learn more effectively while in class because their concentration levels are dramatically increased through adequate nutrition. The program is powerful and replicable on a wide scale throughout Africa and other poor countries. The schools in rural Uganda that have initiated "Project 190" programs have shown immediate and significant increases in school attendence. In addition, school prinicpals tout the program as positively impacting student health and students' ability to concentrate in school. Many additional prinicpals are eager to introduce a "Project 190" program into their own schools in rural Uganda, but limited resources have limited its expansion to date. The Mpambara-Cox Foundation has the staff and organizational infrastructure in place to greatly expand the program in many more schools if adequate funding is made available. Yet "Project 190" is more than a one-sided aid program. It also has a unique component that makes the program relevant to American elementary schools as well. Through MCF's US-Africa Schools Partnering Initiative (USASPI), African schools are partnered with US elementary schools to promote global understanding and exchange among the students, teachers, and prinicpals in participating schools. The result is improved education for both African and American students, who establish personal and tangible connections with students in their partner schools. Each side learns about the other and all students benefit from increased knowledge of the diverse but intricately interconnected world in which they live. The future of a world of coorperative and peaceful nations is dependent upon such shared understanding. To fail to address the current needs of education in rural Africa, and to ignore the need for all young people to better grasp those who are different and distant from themselves, is to send our children into the future without the tools they need to create a just, sustainable, and cooperative world. We owe them so much more. "Project 190", as part of USASPI, is a way to effectively enable the next generation to fashion a world they will proud to live in.