The Grand Duchy of Luxembourg has contributed €1 million (US$1.3 million) to the World Food Programme (WFP), which will support the purchase of additional food to complement existing school meals in 2,000 public schools in Nicaragua.
Speaking about the benefits school meals have brought to the students, Josefa de la Cruz Briones, head of the school said, “This is a huge opportunity for the children”. “When I grew up, we did not have the advantage of eating at school. My poor mother did her best to feed the whole family, without any support.”
However, lack of awareness amongst parents about the benefits of the programme is a big challenge. Lack of infrastructure is another challenge as the school neither has a warehouse nor its own kitchen. For these reasons, the food is stored in a classroom and every afternoon the mothers take it home to cook. The next morning, the food is brought back to school.
Suní school, which is attended by 61 children at preschool and elementary school level, assigns a specific role every day to two or three mothers per classroom for the preparation of the meal.
The fathers of the community – who are mainly subsistence farmers affected by recurrent droughts – are also involved in the programme.
For WFP, the contribution made by the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg represents an opportunity to guarantee that the most vulnerable children have access to a hot plate of food, five days a week.
Original source: WFP
Published on 24 July 2019
