Binance, through its charity arm the Binance Charity Foundation (BCF) has launched a pilot blockchain-based lunch program to feed 200 students over the course of the year. The program dubbed ‘Lunch for Children’ will see the students receive at least two meals every single day through the end of the year. In a post published by Binance on its official blog, the launch of the Lunch for Children program happened on February 19th, at Jolly Mercy Learning Centre in Kampala, Uganda.
In attendance during at the event was H.E. Rosemary Nansubuga Seninde, Uganda’s Minister of State for Primary Education, and Dr. James Ssekiwanuka, the headmaster of Jolly Mercy Learning Centre. In addition, BCF’s implementation partners Kenya-based Dream Building Service Association (DBSA) and sponsor privacy-oriented blockchain firm Zcoin were also in attendance. The event also saw the attendance of more than 500 guests including students, parents, teachers and school partners.
In her speech during the event, Dr. Ssekiwanuka expressed her gratitude and enthusiasm towards the BCF initiative to feed the school through the use of cutting edge technology. She said:
“It is not only a donation but a disruptive and significant combination of technology and charity, which enables a higher level of trust between stakeholders involved in this process because people are protected from potential corruption that is vulnerable with middlemen. All the allocation records are demonstrated on the blockchain which is immutable. I firmly believe that the public trust and willingness to participate in this intervention will grow dramatically as the donors see their goodwill changing the lives of the students, in real time.”
The ZCoin team pledged to donate $24,000 in cryptocurrency as the year progresses in support of the initiative. Reuben Yap, the COO of Zcoin also expressed his support 
for the BCF efforts by saying that “When BCF first reached out to us and told us about their charity efforts, we were intrigued especially when we learned how the funds were directly traceable to the direct end recipient and how they ensured that those cryptocurrencies could be spent on goods.” As a privacy-centric blockchain, ZCoin, its tokens are fungible and may breed a lack of accountability as they cannot be tracked on the blockchain but the blockchain technology still offers a better alternative to fiat donations. “Although we’re a privacy coin, in this case, blockchain donations allow full end-to-end traceability of funds for transparency and accountability. We are hopeful that Lunch for Children sets a good first model in using cryptocurrency for donations and builds awareness of the potential of blockchain technology in charity,” added Yap.
