As the increasing need to incorporate healthy foods into augmentation support through feeding programs for children is recognized, school chefs across Saint Lucia have received training to improve their capacity.

One hundred and fifty (150) school cooks from across the island have received training in food safety and quality over a seven-week period, all in an effort to strengthen the school feeding program nationally.

The training forms part of the Mexico-Caricom-FAO Initiative, “Cooperation for Climate Change Adaptation and Resilience in the Caribbean,” in meeting its mandate of increasing the resilience of Caribbean countries, improving the livelihoods and well-being of families and communities, and providing access to healthy food.

Nutrition Consultant on the National School Feeding Project, Euthalia Philgence, explains that the training sessions were aimed at educating participants on how to cook healthy alternative meals for the children in the school feeding program.

“Right now they usually have a diet based on flour and rice and so on, but now we’re asking them to use what we have locally grown, so this is what we’re doing, we’re cooking locally grown food in different ways to ensure that the students get a healthy meal. It shos variety, color, and texture, and we’re hoping that it will be appealing to the children. So far we’ve done seven districts.  All of the cooks are getting the same type of training and it ensures that they have menu options so they can continue what they have taught here, and they will also get a reference in the form of a recipe book and menu.”

National Project Coordinator of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) School Feeding Program, Cherry Ann Smith in expressing gratitude to all stakeholders involved in ensuring the training’s successful completion says this initiative directly contributes toward achieving Sustainable Development Goal SDG two (2) which is aimed at ending hunger, achieving food security, improving nutrition and promoting sustainable agriculture.

“So basically the whole aim of this project is to strengthen the school feeding program, we’re looking at activities that would improve livelihoods, especially the livelihoods of the children, we’re not only looking at the training fo the cooks, but added to that we have activities that include the rehabilitation of school kitchens and gardens,  and what we want to do is incorporate the gardens and the school feeding program to have a union.”

Although the training has been completed, the project coordinator confirms that the FAO is now focusing on rehabilitating school kitchens and working with technical officers in the Ministry of Agriculture to create a farmer’s school manual.