School Meal Programs Getting Back on Track in Central America, Despite Hurdles — Global Issues
ZARAGOZA, El Salvador, April 11 (IPS) – A group of preschool students enthusiastically planted cucumbers and other vegetables in their small school garden in southern El Salvador, a sign of the programs The school feeding program is being revived as the world emerges from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Although the effects of the coronavirus are still being felt, schools in Latin America, particularly in Central America, have reopened for on-site and blended classes.
Gradually, important components of the school meal program, such as the vegetable garden, began to function again.
“Does anyone know what tree this is?” Teacher Sandra Peña, 36, asked a small group of children to follow her in line to the small vegetable garden at El Zaite Children’s Center, located on the outskirts of Zaragoza, a city in the southern province of La Libertad. El. Salvadoran.
The children loudly replied, “tomato!”, while pointing to a tomato bush that had already bloomed a few yellow flowers.
With the coronavirus hardships not yet gone, schools in Central America are working to resume school feeding programs that were making good progress before the pandemic.
According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), these programs benefit 85 million students in Latin America and the Caribbean. Furthermore, for nearly 10 million children, they are one of the main reliable sources of food received every day.
“Students are returning to the classroom, in a context that has not yet returned to normal, but they are slowly returning,” said Najla Veloso, an expert at Brazil-FAO International Cooperation Programtold IPS from Brasilia.
As a result of this partnership, at the start of the pandemic, in 2020, several Latin American and Caribbean countries took joint actions to keep school feeding programs running, as part of of the Sustainable School Nurturing Network (Raes).
These countries are Belize, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Grenada, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Peru, Paraguay, St. Lucia and St. Vincent and the Grenadines.
Raes was established by the Brazilian government in 2018, as part of the United Nations Decade of Action on Nutrition (2016-2025), to assist countries in the region in the implementation and reform of their programs. school feeding program, which is based on accessibility and guarantees the right to an adequate diet.
Challenges continue
As the pandemic hits and schools close, activities in the school gardens and kitchens where food is prepared are halted. That means strategies must be put in place to ensure students have food – not in schools, but in the homes of families who are being locked down to limit the spread of the virus.
The containment solution is to bring non-perishable food to student homes, because meals are not cooked in schools.
The FAO expert points out that Guatemala and El Salvador have done a great job in this regard, and overall, all Central American countries work hard to keep their students fed.
“Some countries have had to change their laws, because food can only be given to students legally, and when schools are closed, they can’t give it to them anymore, and they have to give it to dad, mom and family,” Veloso explained.
The logistics of an already complex program must be greatly expanded, with components such as local purchasing, which involves the coordinated procurement of legumes, grains, vegetables, fruits and other products. Other products are on the school’s menu from local farmers.
In some cases, seed kits and farming tools are also provided so families can grow vegetables in their home gardens, as the school garden is no longer in operation.
Now in most of the seven Central American countries, schools have reopened with a combination of online and face-to-face learning, with food no longer delivered to students’ homes, but instead delivered to students. Parents come to school to receive products.
In the case of El Salvador, the Department of Education invested, for the school year beginning January and ending November, more than $10 million in a food program serving more than one million students nationwide. , at 5128 public schools.
In this Central American country of 6.7 million people, two food baskets have begun to arrive, one containing 1.1kg corn cereal for breakfast and seven liters of pasteurized liquid milk, while the other contains rice, beans, sugar, oil, powdered milk and vitamin drinks.
When IPS visited, parents and teachers at a school in the state of San Isidro, in the city of Izalco in the western region of Sonsonate, were in the process of quarterly deliveries of shopping carts, which are now replacing food rations. meals at public schools.
School principal Manuel Guerrero said: “We have managed to get through the pandemic, and now we are gradually getting the vegetable garden back up and running,” said Manuel Guerrero, principal of the school. said.
The school in San Isidro, which opens in 2021, serves 1,500 elementary and middle school students.
“Teachers have been working with students in the gardens to make up for lost time,” added the 57-year-old principal.
Before the pandemic, they had grown tomatoes, green peppers, yucca, cabbage, and a local plant called chipilín (Crotalaria longirostrata), whose leaves were added to soups for a high vitamin content.
“From our experience, and because I have visited many schools, I can say that the idea of a school garden was assimilated from the very beginning, and that is why we had to put in the effort. to maintain it,” Guerrero added.
Modern Kindergarten
At the El Zaite Children’s Center, kitchen operations are resuming, although not as they were before the pandemic, as the chef, Dinora Gómez, has taken great care to ensure that the dishes are prepared. to the liking of the children.
A bit nostalgic, she reminisced IPS about the days when she made pots and pans.
Gómez, 50, says: “For lunch, for example, I would cook them minced vegetables, with soy meat, tomato sauce, and rice. Another time was lentil soup and other vegetables.
For breakfast, “I’ll make scrambled eggs, fried beans, and bananas,” she adds.
Packages of non-perishable food donated by the Convoy of Hope, a missionary organization, were also distributed to students’ families.
Now, although the kitchen is still officially closed, Gómez is preparing something to eat for a small group of students whose parents cannot provide them with a mid-morning snack.
She also occasionally makes salads from vegetables grown in the garden.
This small school in El Zaite, opened in 1984, serves 110 students aged 4 to 6 and has 6 teachers.
The school is located in a low-income semi-rural community inhabited by people who settled here in the 1980s, fleeing bombings and military action during the Salvadoran civil war (1980-1992). It is now home to 563 families.
Carlos Díaz, director of Patronato Lidia Coggiola, an NGO that implements initiatives to support communities in this area, including schools, told IPS: “We are on land that used to be. pasture for the cattle of the rich in Zaragoza.
The school is a community project outside of the Department of Education’s network, following an on-demand curriculum but with additional emphasis on topics such as water rights or care for the environment.
In 1999, as part of the Sponsoring Organisation’s activities, a scholarship and distance funding program was launched with the support of donors from Italy, France and the United States, to bring about benefits for young people in the community who want to continue to high school and college.
One of the beneficiaries of this initiative is Marta Mendoza, who attended preschool at the center, graduated from college and now returns to the center as a teacher.
“We have formed groups, and we are working on reading,” Mendoza told IPS.
“Little by little, we are slowly returning to the dynamism we had in the classroom before the pandemic,” she said.
© Inter Press Service (2022) – All rights reservedOrigin: Inter Press Service
