The Acting National Coordinator of the Ghana School Feeding Programme (GSFP), Mrs. Gertrude Quashigah has revealed a far advanced plan by Government to provide cocoa drink to all the beneficiary pupils under the feeding programme.
She said that, the President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo would launch the introduction of the cocoa drink latest by August this year, 2019.
According to her, the cocoa drink will be given as breakfast to the children before their daily hot nutritious meal is served to them.
Speaking in Wa at the ongoing regional capacity building training workshop being organized by the Ghana School Feeding Programme for all caterers, cooks and district nutrition officers, Mrs. Quashigah noted that the cocoa drink would help improve the health of the children.
She indicated that there were other several innovations her outfit was introducing to improve on the school feeding programme especially the quality of meal served to the kids, the welfare of the caterers and how to expand and sustain the programme to benefit more Ghanaian children.
The Ghana School Feeding Programme was set up to increase school enrolment, attendance, and retention; reduce short term hunger and malnutrition; and boost domestic food production.
Mrs. Gertrude Quashigah, Acting National Coordinator, GSFP
The training, dubbed: “Innovative Nutrition Initiativeâ€, is on the theme: “Improving School Meals through Capacity Building†will equip the caterers and their head cooks to measure up to the required quality standards of preparing nutritious meal for the pupils.
The Acting National Coordinator indicated that the main goal of this training workshop is also to train the participants on the use of the meal planner software to generate district based menus, and secondly, to deepen the involvement and participation of the Regional Coordinating Councils, Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) in managing an efficient and effective homegrown school feeding programme.
Beginning from Upper West Region, over 5,711 caterers and head cooks are to undergo the intensive training to sharpen their cooking skills. It will then move to the Upper East, North East, Northern and Savannah regions.
The training programme is being funded by the World Food Programme (WFP) with technical support from the Partnership for Child Development (PCD).
, December 17, 2019