Hot meals helping Haiti’s children recover from the earthquake

It’s 11 o’clock successful the greeting astatine the Ecole Nationale des Filles de Dame Marie, a schoolhouse successful the tiny municipality of Dame Marie connected the occidental peninsula of confederate Haiti. Two unpaid cooks are moving a spot precocious with the mentation of today’s repast for 307 schoolchildren.

On the paper are achromatic beans, which are taking a small longer to navigator than normal. Wheat atom volition beryllium added arsenic volition rootlike oil, outpouring onions and spicy peppers to 2 steaming pots.

The students here, some girls and boys contempt the sanction of the school, are benefiting from the World Food Programme’s schoolhouse feeding inaugural which aims to supply the astir susceptible children with astatine slightest 1 cooked repast per day.

The schoolhouse main Franesie Sylvestre says for galore of these children, “this is the lone repast they volition devour today.”

Dame Marie municipality was affected by the earthquake, but the schoolhouse remained mostly unscathed isolated from a fewer cracks successful the walls of buildings and a collapsed entranceway gate.

UN Haiti/Daniel Dickinson

Banana leaves screen 2 pots of beans and wheat, schoolhouse meals for implicit 300 children.

Earthquake impact

The astir important interaction has been connected the parents of these children, galore of whom mislaid their farms oregon missed the planting play owed to the earthquake.

That’s wherefore this schoolhouse feeding programme is truthful important. It volition springiness the children vigor to transportation connected studying and supply enactment to their parents. school main Franesie Sylvestre

“They tin nary longer cultivate food,” says Principal Sylvestre, “so they cannot provender their children properly. That’s wherefore this schoolhouse feeding programme is truthful important. It volition springiness the children vigor to transportation connected studying and supply enactment to their parents. In the agelong run, that is bully for our community.”

This schoolhouse feeding programme was successful cognition earlier the earthquake which struck south-west Haiti connected 14 August, starring to the deaths of much than 2,200 people; an further 12,700 were injured and cardinal infrastructure, specified arsenic bridges, roads, hospitals and schools, was destroyed oregon damaged.

This schoolhouse is conscionable 1 of much than 1,600 wherever WFP is providing meals to astir 344,000 students. In astir schools, the inaugural is focused connected much than conscionable providing a repast to bare children.

Holistic approach

Small handwashing stations fashioned from buckets basal connected platforms extracurricular each classroom. They’ve been installed by the UN Children’s Fund, UNICEF, to guarantee that the children larn bully hygiene habits specified arsenic washing hands earlier meals.

And UNICEF has provided books to survey the French language, maths and different subjects arsenic good arsenic desks wherever students tin comfortably study.

“We person to instrumentality a holistic approach,” says WFP’s Maguelita Varin, “because if children don’t lavation their hands and past eat, they tin get sick. And if they don’t person immoderate books, they’re not capable to survey adjacent if they person eaten well.” 

WFP’s schoolhouse feeding programme is readying to grow to supply meals cooked from locally grown nutrient for astir 40,000 children successful 190 schools successful the 3 departments that were affected by the earthquake.

The UN’s International Labour Organization is looking to enactment the wider cultivation amongst farmers successful the country of breadfruit, a nutritious and versatile food. It’s hoped breadfruit volition go a staple constituent successful schoolhouse meals, a improvement which would, successful turn, enactment the section economy.

“This attack helps to prolong the section system and volition promote farmers to turn much crops,” says Maguelita. “Ultimately, it volition assistance communities to retrieve amended and physique their resilience to aboriginal shocks.”

At the Ecole Nationale des Filles de Dame Marie, the nutrient is ready, and students are lining up patiently to lavation their hands earlier joining the queue for their blistery meal. For galore this is their archetypal nutrient of the time and immoderate look precise hungry.

UN Haiti/Daniel Dickinson

Children enactment up for escaped schoolhouse meals provided by WFP.

Back astatine their desks, they tuck successful enthusiastically to generous helping of beans and wheat. They are excessively focused connected eating to walk clip chatting, and teachers cognize they volition beryllium good fed and focused connected the lessons that follow.