Back to School 2020: Supporting national school meals programme to navigate in the coronavirus era
In Kyrgyzstan, WFP in partnership with the host government is adapting the school meals programme in light of changes brought by the pandemic to support the nutrition needs of schoolchildren.
2020 has been an unusual year and will remain to be so until the end, at least for school children. This has led the World Food Programme (WFP) to introduce unusual solutions to ensure schoolchildren receive nutritious meals no matter what learning arrangements are in place. In spring, when all schools were closed due to the outbreak of COVID-19, WFP had to make quick decisions and distribute food to children as take-home rations.
As the new academic year started on 1 September, WFP was fully prepared.
The rehabilitating and upgrading school canteens were completed to ensure they would be ready to prepare hot meals as classes resumed, as a part of the Ministry of Education’s efforts to reach all primary schools with school meals by 2022.
WFP also designed new online training for school cooks and learning materials for parents, as well as solutions to ensure schoolchildren can fully benefit from nutritious meals to boost their education and well-being.
Distribution of fortified wheat flour to schools
As the new school year kicked off in Kyrgyzstan at the beginning of this month through distance learning, WFP launched the “Healthy Baking at Home” campaign for up to two weeks, in which parents attended educational events as they collected their take-home rations of fortified wheat flour from the schools.
“School Meals at home” information campaign
At the start of a new academic year, WFP together with the Ministry of Education and Science launched School Meals at Home campaign, with the goal to promote healthy nutrition and lifestyle for school children and their parents. During the first quarter of the new school year, schools will be open only for the 1st-grade school children, while everyone else studies remotely. WFP is providing parents with educational materials including infographics, videos of recipes, menus, and children’s stories on nutrition and health. Awareness-raising and behavior-changing materials on the topics of child health and nutrition will also be shared on WFP’s social media platforms such as Instagram, Facebook and YouTube.
“I have subscribed to the social media pages of WFP in Kyrgyzstan right after I saw an announcement about the start of the campaign. I have learned many new things about the nutrition of children — things to which I had not paid attention to before. I have also downloaded the Cook Book where I found healthy recipes for my family, ” says Natalia Bugaeva, a mother.
This campaign includes several educational videos and online training: schoolchildren will receive nutrition education as part of their regular curriculum and parents will receive nutrition advice, school meal recipes and cooking tips through weekly mobile-friendly communications.
Online training for school cooks
WFP switched the majority of its events for beneficiaries to online platforms, especially in educational institutions. To make distance learning convenient and easily accessible, training programs were recorded on video and uploaded to specially-created sites and mobile applications.
Each year before the start of the school year, the School Meals Optimization Program conducts training for school principals, cooks, and parents on preparing hot meals for primary school children. This year, the program adapted its approaches to distance learning and the school cooks were able to go through training remotely. The programme included important topics like safety measures in school canteens, sanitary rules and norms in the preparation of hot meals, menu development, work with recipes, and how to cook dishes according to the school menu.
As for the practical part of the training, the chefs will prepare dishes from the school menu, film them, and send the results through WhatsApp groups that will be created for the training. At the end of the training, results will be assessed.
“Technology allowed us to learn online. I enjoyed every session we had and learned something every day,” says Yrysgul Zharkymbaeva, School cook in Tup village of Issyk-Kul province.
Renovation work in school canteens and provision of equipment
One of the conditions for the introduction of hot meals in schools covered by the “School Meals in the Kyrgyz Republic” programme is the availability of infrastructure including water supply, sewerage, and electricity. Infrastructural improvements are financed through local government bodies, voluntary contributions of parents, and sponsors in the communities. Despite the difficulties caused by many local governments having to revise their budgets and redirect funds to fight the pandemic, local authorities are trying to find additional budgets to carry out repair work in school canteens.
“Apart from providing all the necessary equipment to the schools, this year WFP delivered fortified flour for first graders. This is a very important and timely support. Now we can bake our food ourselves and save money for fruit and vegetables that are essential for growing bodies,” says Izat Sahibovich, Director of Sretenka school in Chui province.
Following the completion of the refurbishment of canteens, WFP is donating professional kitchen equipment to schools, including industrial electric stoves, industrial vegetable cutting machines, kneading machines, industrial potato peelers, electric pans, refrigerators, ovens, kitchen scales, etc.
Over 70 percent of the country’s schools provide hot meals to primary school children and are equipped with adequate technical and safety conditions, thanks to the support of WFP and donors like the Russian Federation. For some vulnerable families, the nutritious food provided to children in schools can significantly alleviate their burden as they already spend the majority of their budget on food.
