Government Gets Support to "Revolutionize" School Feeding Program

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The Acting National Coordinator of the Ghana School Feeding Program (GSFP) revealed that from the beginning of June 2019, caterers and cooks would be intensively trained and sharpen their cooking skills.

The training indicated by Dr. Gertrude Quashigah would allow caterers to improve standards of nutrition, hygiene and quality in preparing meals for schoolchildren, in order to keep them healthy and active to learn at all. moment.

In an interview in Accra, Dr. Quashigah said the training would also target School Health Education Program (SHEP) coordinators and district officers (DDOs) to effectively play their part in the program. supervisory role.

Dr. Mrs. Gertrude Quashigah

With funding from the World Food Program (WFP) and technical support from the Partnership for Child Development (PCD) and YEDENT, the training program would be, according to her, the beginning of the new face of the World Food Program. 39 School feeding in Ghana.

She said that several other measures are being introduced to improve the program nationwide.

In almost every district, the program faces major problems: lack of space for cooking, dining rooms, bowls for children, refrigerators for excessive storage of food, facilities water storage and modern kitchen tools.

She revealed that the Ministry of Gender led by Cynthia Mamle Morrison and the School Feeding Secretariat were taking strategic steps to ensure that various district bademblies, the private sector, religious organizations and civil society as well as other development partners are supporting the program to address the above issues. challenges.

She said that in addition to its core mandate of providing a nutritious hot meal every day to poor children and increasing the schooling and retention rate, the GSFP will create more direct jobs. and indirect for many Ghanaians to stimulate the local economy.

She noted that in the context of home school feeding, the consumption of locally produced food by local farmers would be rigorously enforced.

Dr Quashigah said the management of the school feeding program in Ghana would ensure that caterers buy at all times from local farmers so that they can also produce more.

"It's just about letting farmers, especially those in the Plant for Food and Employment group, know exactly what kind of crops caterers need to prepare children's meals so farmers can grow them. Consequently. In this way, more jobs will be created for farmers, transport owners, drivers, garages, etc. She said.

Ghana's school feeding program now benefits more than 2.8 million students in 9,495 disadvantaged schools. He also employed over 9,700 caterers and 19,400 cooks.