School Meal Program

The School Meal Program was created to provide free, nutritious, plant-based meals to underprivileged school children — supporting their health, wellbeing, attendance and learning. It runs in three countries, and each one is cooked and overseen locally.

Sri Lanka is the most established, running since March 2023 across the Mannar, Nuwara Eliya and Vavuniya districts: around 1,750 hot meals a week, five days a week. The meals are prepared on site by local women, most of them mothers, employed on a contract basis — so the programme carries an economic effect as well as a nutritional one. The school principals oversee daily operations. Since it began, incidents of children fainting during morning physical education have fallen to nearly zero, and attendance has risen to 75%.

Nepal has run since May 2024 at two primary schools in Kallika Municipality, Chitwan — around 350 meals a week. A dedicated dining shelter was built at Supar Primary School, replacing unsafe outdoor eating in harsh weather; a proposal for a second shelter at Siddha Rastriya is under review.

Mexico is the newest, launched on 8 September 2025 near Mexico City, feeding 25 children and school staff five days a week. ACT has since received a proposal to extend it to two more schools, reaching 97 more children.