HEALTH, NUTRITION ASSESSMENT AND COUNSELLING - FREE MEALS PROGRAM FOR PUBLIC SECONDARY AND PRIMARY SCHOOLS

Door of Hope to Women and Youth Tanzania (DHWYT) is currently developing a program to advocate for provision of school meals to primary and secondary schools in Mtwara region. A school meal or school lunch (also known as hot lunch, is a meal provided to students at school, typically in the middle or beginning of the school day. Countries all over the world have various kinds of school meal programs. Millions of children from all standards and grades get their meals at their respective schools every day. School meals provide high-energy food with high nutritional values either free, or at economical rates^.

The benefits of school meals vary from country to country. While in developed countries the school meal is a source of nutritious meals, in developing countries like Tanzania it is an incentive to send children to school and continue their education. In developing countries, school meals provide food security at times of crisis and help children to become healthy and productive adults, thus breaking the cycle of poverty and hunger. But In all cases, school meals allow children to focus on their studies, without hunger as a distraction.

JUSTIFICATION OF THIS INTERVENTION

Mtwara Mikindani for instance is one of the districts within Mtwara region. It is a district populated with 108,299 people and their common economic activities are fishing, small business, and agriculture of cassava, maize and cashew-nuts. Majority people in Mtwara Mikindani are in low class economy.  

According to the statistics from national examination council, since last twenty years Mtwara has been ranking the weak positions in both national primary and secondary academic results. For instance the recent primary schools national examination results shows that Mtwara region ranked 25/26 (2016) and 22/26 (2017) this is poor performance compared to other regions in the country. Either Mtwara Municipal ranked 85/186 (2016) and 145/186 (2017), this is also poor score compared to other districts in the country.

For decade now there have been number of debates exploring the reason why Mtwara region and its districts are performing worse in different national examinations; however, academicians and researchers as well as testimonies from instructors show that there is socio-economic factor associated with students’ failure in their examinations especially in primary schools. One among the factors is extreme poverty at the household level and this results the family members to do not access even two meals per day. The problem is further extended to students who spend more time looking for family foods hence don’t get time to proper attend at school but also feel hungry, and all these distinct them from concentrating in their studies when they are at school.

This challenge can slowly be reduced by creating awareness and sensitizing parents to see the importance at the same time advocating the government (local authorities) to support providing free school meals to primary and secondary school students from vulnerable households  at the same time encouraging parents/guardians to contribute in the future; but also to advocate for the government allocate budget for providing school meals to students so as to improve their performance in their studies and examination.

Why do we think this type of intervention is important to students/pupils and schools?

This initiative is proposed to address the concerns of school attendance, performance, and malnutrition in the Mtwara region. By providing children/students with a free school meal, attendance will rise as students are incentivized by the food and no longer need to remain at home to eat. Additionally, it will take some financial pressure of families in terms of providing early-day meals for their children, meaning they are less likely to need the children to work. Due to malnourishment in school, students frequently are unable to concentrate or fall asleep (or miss school altogether). This program will address those issues and should therefore improve performance, both by increasing the student’s ability to do schoolwork as well as increasing the number of days they are in school. Finally, this program will have health benefits by addressing critical levels of malnourishment in young children.