Radio Miraya
2649: Keeping South Sudan Children in Class: WFP's School Feeding Programme
For now, I guess, are already in the studio. Well, one of this country's priorities is keeping children at school. And that is an upper heel task that various partners walking with the government of South Sudan are putting their efforts on. And the United Nations World Food Program is also trying to keep children in class. The Food Aid Agency is running the homegrown school feeding program in South Sudan. And to help us understand this program and the impact it makes in the education sector, we have officials of the school feeding at the WFP. And we have Rachel Chan, who is the head of nutrition and school feeding at the WFP in Kenya, Kennedy, who is the program associate school feeding at the World Food Program. Good morning. And thank you so much for making that time to speak to us today. Good morning. Right. Thanks for having us. So you are running the homegrown school feeding program in South Sudan. Just tell us more about this program. What is the HGSF? The homegrown school feeding program is it really is based on the idea of making school meals sustainable and to ensure that what children eat in school is sourced as locally as possible from local farmers and suppliers. WFP has a regular school meals program that relies on in-kind donations of a staple-based food like a sorghum or rice and pulses, oil and salt. But with a homegrown school feeding program, the meals can be a lot more nutritionally diverse. They can include local produce. It also injects money into the economy while providing a nutritious meal for students. So how many schools are you working with? Well, currently we plan to reach about 400,000 children. However, we have about 90,000 children we plan for the homegrown school feeding program this year. Ultimately, the plan is to roll out around the country and the program will be ultimately a hundred over to the government in the future. Certain conditions need to be met before the homegrown school feeding program is introduced. We have communities readiness, functional markets and enough production to sustain the program. Right, so when will the program be rolled out then? Currently, the program is running. We started in the lake states. We started in Yambio. And currently, we are rolling up in northern Bercazal and our upstates. All right, so the program in northern Bajarazal, when does it roll out then? This year, in fact, it started this year in fact. Oh, it's already running. Yes. OK, so what is the scale of the program in South Sudan currently and how many learners so far are getting these assistance from the places that you've mentioned, Kennedy? As I mentioned earlier, we plan to reach around 90,000 children. Currently, we have about 44,000, which we have started in these states. Yes. Right, and Achael, in the context of education in South Sudan, why is it important for you to keep the program running? Yeah, I think everyone listening is really aware of the importance of education as it contributes to economic development and the progress of a country. And the school meals program, in general, is critical for that because our objective is to increase access to education, as well as provide students with a nutritious meal, which helps them cognitively take benefit of the education that they are receiving. So in South Sudan, half of the school-aid children are out of schools. So the school meal provides an added bonus, added incentive to boost enrollment and attendance. It also protects girls from early marriage, especially in communities where there is extreme food insecurity. We find that girls are at a much higher risk of early marriage. So school meals definitely access a social safety net to help parents keep their kids in school. And as we have mentioned earlier, the homegrown aspect of it has the added nutritional benefit of providing a much more diverse meal, which helps our students develop mentally and physically and improve their future prospects. Right. And you also earlier alluded to the importance of sourcing this food from local farmers. Why is it really important? And which farmers do you look at? Can you look at farmers from within Juba, or is this nationwide? Reason as to why we're looking at having these local farmers. The question is, why is it important to have these farmers? Why are we doing homegrown school feeding? One of the most important reason is we're looking at the locally sourced food, which is very fresh, traditional accepted. And we are trying to boost that up and looking as children as they pull factor for this. One of the reason as well to have this homegrown school feeding program is that by having local farmers, we're creating jobs. We're also sourcing locally. By sourcing locally means we're boosting the farmers' productivity, and we're also boosting the local economy, the local traders, the small business men. So these are things that we look at, and having these schools as the source of having this is important that we have to really look and focus much into local production and local economy. Right. And actually, besides getting the essential meals, what can children learn from this program that uses localized sourcing food? Yeah, so schools are a great platform, not only for delivering educational activities, but also for sharing messages on many other areas. And certainly, the homegrown school feeding can show children that there are prospects for jobs if you're in a local area. As Kenny mentioned, we try to source as locally as possible. So we don't do a homegrown school feeding program in Yambio and get food from Juba. We try to get it from around Yambio, and we empower the schools to be able to make the decision on what goes on the lunch plate for the kids. So we also, in most of our schools, we have what we call school gardens. And so the school gardens are a platform that we can use to disseminate health, nutrition, and dietary diversity messages for students. We can also show students the viability of local businesses and how they can think about fostering into entrepreneurship, et cetera. So it has multiple knock-on effects. And I think in a country where such a South Sudan, where there is an unprecedented humanitarian crisis, programs like this are particularly important for schools in places like Northern Baharagazal and other parts of the country, where we have seen people impacted from conflict coming in. And it allows, you know, it allows for a more sustainable form of programming. It allows us to source locally to be able to manage the dwindling resources that we have. And our ultimate goal as the World Food Program is to put in place programs that are self-sustaining and programs that no longer need WFP support. So boosting local farmer productivity, local farmers contribution to the economy really is the right way to go. - Right, thank you. - No, Kennedy, just bring us a speed on the WFP's visit to Northern Baharagazal come faster, how much? - Well, looking at the visitor, Northern Baharazal, is just to allow and sensitize South Sudanese and the people who are living in this country about the importance of homegrown school feeding program. Our ultimate goal and our priority for this year is to really make sure that we scale up the homegrown school feeding as much as possible and to ensure that we have improved enrollment and attendance at the schools, we really need to reach out to as much as possible at the number of children through the homegrown school feeding program. - Right, actually, would you like to jump in? - Yes, just to compliment what Kennedy has said, the first of March marks the Africa Day of School Feeding and to commemorate this day, WFP is facilitating a visit to Northern Baharagazal to AWL in particular for government partners. The Honorable Minister of Education will be joining us as well as a number of donors for them to see how the homegrown school feeding modality works on the ground and they will have an opportunity to share a meal that is prepared by the school together with the students, the teachers, the farmers and the businesses that are contributing to the homegrown school feeding to facilitate conversation and exchange and understanding of how this program can contribute and is contributing to the country. - Right, and still speaking on that point about the nine celebration of the African Day of School Feeding this year, what are your priorities as WFP regarding the program in South Sudan? - So we currently have over 40,000 children in the homegrown school feeding program and as Kenny mentioned earlier, we aim to get up to almost 90,000. Of course, the expansion of any program is really dependent on availability of funding. So with the resources available to us, we are hoping to reach up to 90,000 children and we want to ensure that it's not just about the provision of meals, it's about working with partners so that children can access a quality education. We are not bringing children to school to feed them. We want children to come to school to learn and the food is a pull factor for them to continue their attendance or working together with partners like UNICEF who also work on education, et cetera, to make sure that quality, regular education is provided and a nutritious meal is provided so the child can benefit from that education. - Right, right, right, a child and Kenny, thank you so much for making our time to speak to us. Now, finally, moving forward, are there any plans of expansion, seeing that the climatic shocks are leaving more and more people vulnerable? - Yeah, I mean, climatic shocks have shown to have a real impact on South Sudan and we have been working actually with farmers in many parts of the country to mitigate the impact of climate extremes. We've got good examples including in Northern Baharigazal of, for example, starting to grow rice in flood-prone areas. There are other parts of the country where we are working with farmers to increase production of cassava, which is a drought-prone crop. But the reality remains that funding is decreasing, I think globally and also in South Sudan. So we have also seen a decrease in the number of children we are able to assist suddenly from last year to this year. But then that's what makes the homegrown school feeding program really critical and really important because it is in the face of these funding shortfalls that we can, if we go local, we can break the cycle of reliance on humanitarian assistance and develop self-reliance for communities that are facing the shocks. So that despite the shocks, they are able to build community resilience and pull together. - Right, Achelon, can you thank you so much for your time? - Thanks very much. - Thanks very much. - And did Achelon, can you form the WFP? Thank you so much for sharing this important information.