The Ministry of Basic and Senior Secondary Education together with the World Food Programme, World Vision, and other Partners celebrated the Africa Day of School Feeding at the Roman Catholic Primary School Compound in Zimmi Town, Pujehun District.

The theme for this year’s celebration is “Investing in Home-Grown School Feeding to transform education systems for an inclusive, and prosperous future of the African Continent”.

The 1st of March every year is observed as the day for school feeding in Africa. This day is set aside to underscore the transformative power of the Home-Grown School Feeding Programmes implemented in hungry-prone communities across Africa.

In Sierra Leone, the National Home-Grown School Feeding Programme is being implemented as a key component of the Government’s National School Feeding Policy which is geared towards retaining pupils in school and alleviating hunger and malnutrition among children in 143 chiefdoms, in 15 out of the 16 electoral districts in the country.

Speaking at the school feeding celebration in Pujehun District, the Director of Nutrition at the Ministry’s School Feeding Secretariat, Sengbe Roger Koker, spoke on the rationale of the Home-Grown School Feeding Programme in Sierra Leone.

He revealed that school feeding has been an important social safety net since independence in Sierra Leone, however, he noted that the various models of school feeding that have been in place in the country had not been beneficial to the local economy, in terms of food production and processing. For this reason, the MBSSE Director of Nutrition said the Government took a step backward to analyze the challenges faced in the implementation of the program and developed a model of school feeding that addresses the observed shortcomings.

Director Koker informed his audience that Sierra Leone is undergoing a transition from an import-based school feeding model, to one that will be advantageous to local farmers, most of whom the Director said are women in rural communities.

He said the National Home-Grown School Feeding Programme aims to support a sustainable program that ensures healthy school meals are served to children, who are enrolled in schools in Sierra Leone.