-500 children to benefit
Food for the Poor (Guyana) Inc with the aid of an overseas-based Guyanese pilot has undertaken a feeding programme in primary schools in central Georgetown.
The Central Georgetown Feeding Programme started two weeks ago and is expected to last for one year. The aim of the feeding programme is to meet the nutritional needs of 500 schoolchildren from three depressed communities in central Georgetown. Based on this, three schools were selected: West Ruimveldt from the community of Albouystown, St Stephens from the Alexander Village community and Sophia Primary from Sophia.
Through a process of random selection in which age, grade, economical background and level of attendance were factors, 200 children were selected from St Stephens Primary, 150 from West Ruimveldt and 150 from Sophia Primary. This brings the total to 500. However, the Chief Financial Officer and the Executive Director of Food for the Poor will donate 20 meals a month so that an extra four needy children from the Sophia Primary school get to be a part of the programme, which brings the official total of 504 students being fed.
Meals are available once a week. The initial number of children selected was further broken down into groups of four. Feedings at the St Stephens Primary are every Mondays while at West Ruimveldt feedings are every first and second Tuesdays and every third and fourth Tuesdays. This is so that each group gets a meal. At the Sophia Primary, two groups will be fed every first and second Wednesdays and the other two groups every third and fourth Wednesdays.
Speaking at a press conference on Tuesday last, Executive Director of Food for the Poor Leon Davis urged teachers of the selected schools to ensure that the area selected for the children to sit and eat their meals was clean and set up beforehand. He stated that his organisation should not be responsible for such and further pointed out that Food for the Poor’s role was to ensure that the children received their meals on time. The teachers were present for a simple presentation ceremony of book bags which each of the schools will be receiving in addition to the feeding programme.
The $3.1M programme is not only being done to combat hunger and malnutrition among the children but also the unpunctuality and truancy which was noted to be prevalent in the selected schools.
Meanwhile, in a presentation at its head office last week Wednesday, Food for the Poor handed over two complete training computer systems to the Little Red Village of Onderneeming Sand Pit, Essequibo Coast. The systems which each include a central processing unit, seven monitors, keyboards and mouse, and six expansion kits are designed for the purpose of training. The Little Red Village was a large-scale housing project undertaken by Food for the Poor in October 2008 and it was declared open in March this year.
