![]() The best school meal programs are community-based and provide financial support to local farmers. School meals provide support to local farmers. Because these meals are usually prepared and cooked by community members, they also help to keep children connected to local culture. For many children, a school meal is often the only meal of the day, and when it’s balanced, it can stave off negative health effects. ![]() School meal programs tackle all of these problems by providing students with meals that have key nutrients that children need to develop and stay healthy. Another 45 million children are wasted, or too thin for their height, and nearly 39 million are overweight. In fact, an estimated 149 million children under the age of 5 are stunted, meaning they’re not as cognitively and physically developed as they would have been had they received enough nutrients from their diets. Hundreds of millions of children worldwide don't get the food that they need to be healthy. School meals provide essential nutrition. School meals help to provide the justification needed to stay in school.Ģ. Throughout the world, girls are more likely to be pulled from school to help out with domestic responsibilities, to work, or because of rising school costs. Girls, in particular, benefit from this dynamic. Now, as communities continue to refine strategies for opening up schools, daily meals that fight hunger can help to ensure students resume their education. ![]() The school closures caused by the pandemic greatly expanded the number of out-of-school children, creating a potentially generation-defining disruption.īut before and during the pandemic, school meals provided an incentive to either come to school or attend remote classes. School meals keep children, especially girls, in school.Įven before the COVID-19 pandemic, 260 million children were out of school, unable to get the education that they needed to get ahead in life. “But if you want to see stronger local communities, and teen-pregnancy rates drop, and educational opportunities increase, and GDP and economic empowerment, especially of girls - if you want to see that increase, then provide school meals,” he said.Īs the SMC seeks to raise an additional $4.7 billion to feed 73 million vulnerable children, here are five things to know about the benefits of school feeding programs.ġ. If you want more destabilization and migration, and recruitment by extremist groups, don’t provide school meals. “If you want more child marriages, don’t provide school meals. “The question to me is: ‘What’s the cost of not providing a school meal to all the children on the planet?’ If you want increased poverty, don’t provide school meals,” David Beasley, the executive director of WFP, said in a statement. Despite this bargain, school meal programs around the world remain underfunded. In this context, school meals are a lifeline - and the School Meals Coalition (SMC) is on the front lines of ensuring that children in educational contexts around the world have, like Aida, access to something to eat to get them through the day.įor every $1 invested in school meals, communities receive $9 in economic returns, according to an analysis by WFP. ![]() The pandemic has pushed hundreds of millions of people into poverty, increased global hunger rates, and could derail the educational paths of millions of children. Since the pandemic began, more than 370 million students have missed school meals due to COVID-19-related school closures, WFP reports. The meals help to provide the fuel that she needs to pursue her dream of becoming a doctor so that she can help with vaccination efforts - a dream that’s been shaped by the turmoil of the global COVID-19 pandemic. Since that first meal a few years ago, Aida has participated in WFP’s Optimizing School Meals Program, which provides daily meals to students who may not otherwise have access to a lunch. Lunchtime helps me get energy for the rest of the school day.” If we don’t sit down for lunch, my friends and I would be very hungry. “We attend five classes a day, with very short breaks between them, and lunch is served after the third class. “I remember being full and I had so much energy after the meal,” she told the World Food Programme (WFP). The first school meal that Aida, 10, in Kyrgyzstan had was a warm soup with a sweet bun.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |