A majority of the population in Nepal is still unable to get even one complete square meal for the day, only because they are stuck in the vicious circle of poverty and illiteracy. Due to the rising costs, increasing tax and unemployment crisis, the number keeps rising each year. For these vulnerable children, Mid-day meal is only source of having good nutritious food. It not only improves their nutritional status but has a huge impact on their learning outcomes as well. The Mid-day meal program was implemented by Food for Life Nepal from 2015 AD with an intention to boost universalization of primary education by increasing enrollment, retention and attendance simultaneously impacting on the nutritional levels of children. With array of nutritious food on the menu, many children get attracted to school, enroll themselves and attend school regularly. For many parents of these children, sending them to school means not only incurring extra financial burden but also depriving them of some money which their children would have earned otherwise by doing labor, the food comes as a boon not only because it satiates their hunger but also because they get an opportunity to access education.
Moreover, school closures in response to the COVID-19 pandemic are an unprecedented risk to children’s education, protection and well-being. Disruptions to instructional time in the classroom can have a severe impact on a child’s ability to learn. The longer these vulnerable children are out of the school, the less likely they are to return, particularly those who were already attending school irregularly. This all hampers a child’s mental health causing stress and anxiety due to the lack of peer interaction, support and disrupted routines.
There is a good way ahead for the Mid-day Meal scheme. But the government also needs to tread the path carefully if we want our children nourished and not just fed. There are many discussions around how an execution of mid-day meals program can be implemented effectively in different parts of the country and one of the possible ways being – the partnership between private and government entities and non-governmental organization like Food for Life Nepal. This will complement our effort. In addition to providing an incentive for education, an improved Mid-day meal would ensure a consistent effort towards dealing with hunger and malnutrition, two of the biggest problems plaguing the young population today.
Food for Life Nepal’s (Mid-Day Meals: Food and Education for All) is an initiative to scale-up cross-sector partnerships with the governments and leading corporates. With a transformative approach to enhance the impact of the Mid-day meals, Food for Life Nepal will continue to make efforts to not only safeguard the nutritional status of its beneficiaries, but also go beyond meals to ensure their holistic development. Over time, we have evolved and adapted to changing times, overcoming challenges and using innovations to enhance the impact of our Mid-day meal program. We have grown from serving a modest eighteen (18) children in to touching the lives of 3,683 children. Throughout our journey of implementing the Mid-Day Meals program, we have endeavored to continuously improve our processes and enhance the impact of our cause. Moving forward, we strive to explore new avenues—from the delivery of warm, cooked and wholesome meals to initiatives that go beyond them for the overall enrichment of the Mid-day meal program.
The Constitution of Nepal, adopted in 2015, restructured the country as a federal democratic republic, representing a new era for the country at an opportune time to make progress on the 2030 Agenda. The new Right to Food Act enshrines food as a fundamental right of every citizen. Both changes present an opportunity to include Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2 in national policies, budgets, and sub-national plans in the new federal structure. The Zero Hunger Strategic Review (ZHSR), conducted in 2017-18, found that Nepal still suffers from serious food insecurity and malnutrition despite commendable progress on these fronts. It also outlined a series of recommendations to address the problem. (Source: World Food Program)
As a consequence of the quality and value of education in the past and due to economic backwardness and low income, children from economically backward families are often enrolled in community schools in Nepal. These schools are comparatively affordable and runs with government support. However, community schools are striving to compete with private schools despite poor infrastructures, insufficient teaching staffs, and low budget. The daily wage laborers are not able to send their children to schools with proper lunch or tiffin. These children usually eat uncooked noodles, biscuits and fast food available in schools nearby and sometimes do not eat at all. Their healthy growth of body and mind can be easily affected by hunger and malnourishment. School-aged children are highly susceptible to malnutrition. Some children go to their homes for lunch and do not return. While some even stay at home supporting their parents in farms or household works because they know that they need to work to eat and so prioritize work over schools.
Food for Life Nepal has been trying to liberate the children from classroom hunger by providing nutritious cooked meals, freshly prepared under the supervision of a food technician to ensure the highest standards of health and hygiene for a balanced diet to meet the dietary requirements for better growth and development of the children both mentally and physically.
However, in order to be able to promote education through food, by providing Mid-Day Meals at community schools, we need your support.
Problem Statement: When addressing the concept of illiteracy in Nepal, one of the first things that come to our minds is hunger. While many may question the connection between hunger and illiteracy there is an undeniable link. Children who are undernourished have trouble concentrating and bonding with other children and are more likely to suffer illnesses that result in absentees in school. Poor performance early in school is a major risk factor for dropping out of school, hence increasing the illiteracy rate of the nation. Although food insecurity is harmful to any individual, it can be particularly devastating among children due to their increased vulnerability and the potential for long-term consequences.
Priority Needs: Students enrolled in community schools are more likely to come from households in lower income brackets, and these are the schools primarily targeted by this program. Students’ lack of healthy meals is often an indication of limited household finances and budgetary constraints.
The Mid-Day Meal (MDM) scheme is a transformative program with the well-being of children at its core. School meals programs are widely considered as one of the most effective interventions to simultaneously improve nutrition and education outcomes for school children in developing countries. School meals programs contribute to alleviating short-term hunger in school children, which increases their ability to concentrate and learn while they are at school.
Target Group: The MDM program caters to all the children enrolled at community schools and prioritizes MDM to primary level school children.
Current No. of Beneficiaries: 3,683+ Children | Total No. of Community Schools: 15 | Date: 25-03-2021
The Proposed Approach: “It was found that the percentage of children with better attendance (>60% of working days) and was higher (97.8%) in Mid-Day Schools than in non-midday schools” (International Journal of Science and Research, 2015)
In the philanthropic mission of ending classroom hunger and promoting education through nutritious mid-day meals, FFLN has seen promising results that could lead to a reduction of child mortality rate due to hunger and malnutrition (“52% of child death is caused due to undernutrition in Nepal”, UNICEF 2019) meeting Sustainable Development Goals (SDG 2) by 2030 AD along with the increase in child literacy rate. Such programs also increase student enrolment, attendance and retention rates. Jointly, these factors contribute to better academic outcomes as well as improved child health.
The implementing organization: The Government of Nepal seeing the need for children for school meal programs has allocated a budget of Rs 15 per child per meal. The budget is handed to the government schools in coordination with the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (MOEST) and which in turn to FFLN at their disposal with official agreement with government schools to support their children’s health through nutritious meals and education respectively.
The effort by the government is commendable however to run a mid-day meal at that rate, the budget still falls short. FFLN is the solution at the present to bridge the shortcoming. The centralized kitchen concept of FFLN takes advantage of economies of scale where our full capacity is 10,000 meals per day. Our per meal cost is approximately Rs 25-30, depending upon the fluctuation of market price. The remaining cost is borne by FFLN in collaboration with different corporate houses.
The purpose of mid-day meal scheme is to curb hunger and illiteracy rate in Nepalese children. The intervention of mid-day meals in the community schools in Nepal is one of the simplest means to improve children’s nutrition and empower education. The problems to be solved with the mid-day meal program are:
The impact seen among the children should result in children are: