By Philip Yatai

The Federal Government has resumed the implementation of its National Home-Grown School Feeding Programme in Kaduna State with more than 730,000 pupils as beneficiaries.

The Focal Person, National Social Investment Programmes in the state, Mrs Saude Atoyebi, made this known at an event to mark the resumption of the programme in Kaduna on Wednesday.

Saude explained that more than 7,000 cooks were employed to provide one meal a day to the 730,000 pupils, from primary one to primary three in 3,400 schools across the state.

She pointed out that the NHGSFP was one of the flagship Social Investment Programmes of President Muhammadu Buhari led administration designed to improve school enrolment and nutrition status of the pupils.

She added that the programme also provides employment opportunities to women and enhances the potentials of small-holder farmers within communities, thereby stimulating local economic growth.

She recalled that the implementation of the programme was disrupted by the outbreak of COVID-19, a development that led to the closure of schools in March 2020.

“We are happy schools have reopened and that the school-feeding programme has now resumed in primary schools across the state.

“For many pupils, this is the only decent meal that they get to eat daily, and we are glad that they can enjoy it,” she said.

The focal person said that the state government, with support from development partners had put many mechanisms in place to strengthen the delivery of the programme.

She explained that the state government along with the School Feeding Multi-Sectoral Team had used the school closure period to establish Kaduna Mothers for Accountability Group.

“The group is a voluntary association of self-motivated mothers of pupils in the same school who will work together to hold the cooks to account and ensure that only quality and standard meals are served.

“They have been trained with support from the McArthur Foundation through ActionAid Nigeria and the other partners working in the state to handle minor infractions and scale up more serious issues to the Social Investment Office.

“Also, the state government, in collaborating with the Gates Foundation will equally deepen financial inclusion among the cooks and explore creative ways to improve their financial literacy and business acumen,” Atoyebi said.

She equally said that the government was currently conducting medical screening for the cooks to ensure that they are all fit to provide this sensitive service of feeding our cooks.

She added that the state government in collaboration with Partnership for Child Development (PCD) had successfully conducted a menu standardisation and handy measures training.

According to her, the measure was to ensure that meals prepared met the required reference nutrient intake for our pupils.

Atoyebi said that the government also established a call centre for grievances to be addressed promptly by professionals and urged community members to utilise the platform.

She thanked the Federal Government and other partners for the support and reiterated the commitment of Gov. Nasir El-Rufai led-administration to the success of the programme.

The Programme Manager, Mr Umar Abdullahi urged parents and community members to support the government to ensure successful implementation of the programme.