By William Madouk
Top government and UN officials had a meal with schoolchildren in Maluil Akoong Primary School in Northern Bahr el Ghazal State on Friday to mark the commemoration of African School Feeding Day.
The national minister of General Education and Instruction, Awut Deng Acuil, and governor Tong Akeen Ngor, the UN World Food Programme, FAO, and the World Bank, among other dignitaries, had a tasty school meal.
This came after WFP introduced the Home-Grown School Feeding Programme to provide students with meals using locally sourced produce from local markets and a school garden to offer vegetables for a balanced diet.
“We will continue to work closely to make this new homegrown school feeding programme,” Minister Acuil assured,
The upbeat minister added that she is ‘happy to see that through this homegrown school feeding programme, the benefit extends to the education sector while also improving the health and nutritional status of kids.
“A revitalization of the local economy and markets, enhancing support for farmers and agriculture, and addressing hunger faced by young farmers,” she noted.
Also, Northern Bahr el Ghazal State Governor Tong Akeen Ngor said the school feeding programme has a positive impact but decried a sharp reduction, which would have a negative impact.
“I appreciate WFP for the school feeding programme, which has a positive impact on the enrolment and retention of schoolchildren,” said Ngor.
“But with the current sharp deduction of funds, many children have dropped out of school because of hunger,” he added.
According to Ngor, WFP previously scaled up homegrown school feeding in Aweil, targeting 44 out of 144 schools, adding that the UN-World Food Programme must double up their efforts to cover more schools.
Furthermore, he appealed to donors to increase their funding to keep more children in school.
According to state education authorities, Northern Bahr el Ghazal has 756 schools with about 500,000 children attending schools, with WFP supporting 25 percent of the primary schools and learners across the state.
“We acknowledge and thank the WFP for supporting 25% of our primary schools and learners (144 schools), of which 56,000 children are benefiting from the WFP school feeding programme across five counties,” said Santino Bol Akok, NBG’s minister of education.