Children are effective agents of change and what they learn in school will also positively impact on the health behavior in their homes and their behaviors’ as adults. Home Grown School Feeding (HGSF) Programmes respond to community needs; they are locally owned and incorporate some form of parental or community contribution, whether cash payment or in-kind, for example, through donated food or labor. The utilization of simple affordable techniques in farming that are easy to implement by local community agents will allow considerable improvement to the health and nutrition of school age children.

The Kenya National School Health, Nutrition and Meals Programme strategy plan that is currently in draft, works towards empowering grassroot communities to take responsibility in solving their problems through participation in the whole management process-prioritiziation, planning, implementation and monitoring.

The community has a strong involvement in school feeding programmes involving school management committees. The manager of these committees is usually nominated or drawn from the community. Njaa Marufuku Kenya Project also offers the community a direct link with the school, often building and providing the community with a direct link to the school, providing the community with an opportunity to monitor school feeding and to interact with teachers at school level.