Primary school nutrition programme to broaden reach

In an effort to reduce malnutrition among children, more Iraqi primary schools students will be included in the Nutrition Schools Programme (NSP) in the 2005/2006 academic year, say officials at the ministries of health and education. “We’re planning to include all primary students in the next phase of the programme,” Khalil Mahdi Mohsen, coordinator at the health ministry’s Nutrition Research Institute (NRI), told IRIN. “4,000 more students will soon benefit from the programme in the governorates of Mesan, Najaf, Babylon and Sulaimaniyah." The initiative, the main feature of which is the distribution of high-energy biscuits and flavoured milk to students, was first launched in 2003. It initially included 110,000 primary school students in seven governorates, including Baghdad, Basra, Mosul, Karbala and Kirkuk. The programme’s overriding goal is to improve the health of Iraqi primary students and, ultimately, to decrease malnutrition levels among children in general. According to Mohsen, the NSP will eventually cover a total of 1,750,000 students in 16 governorates. Malnutrition among Iraqi children increased drastically in the early 1990s, owing mainly to the imposition of UN economic sanctions in the wake of the 1991 Gulf War. According to UNICEF, the trend reached its apex in 1996, when chronic malnutrition affected almost one in three Iraqi children. Almost a quarter, meanwhile, were underweight. While UNICEF and other international agencies were subsequently able to bring these figures down considerably, aid workers say that the situation remains serious. Besides helping to meet student’s nutritional needs, the NSP initiative has also served to promote better school attendance, say ministry officials. "The meals encourage many students to attend school regularly,” said Fawzi Rajeb, director of nutrition and school health at the education ministry. “The programme has also served to decrease truancy by about 30 percent.” The NSP is supported by the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), which provides the programme with some US $60 million per year. According to WFP coordinator for Iraq Asad Munshed, the NSP was envisioned as a way of helping the government and other national institutions manage and implement school feeding programmes in line with educational policies and development objectives. "Our teams assess nutritional needs at schools in the governorates and then supervise the process at the schools themselves," Munshed said. Meals include 100 g of high-energy biscuits and 200 millilitres of flavoured milk. "This meal covers one third of a child’s nutritional requirements, and provides students with enough energy for school activities," Raghda'a al-A'araji, a nutritional specialist at the NRI, told IRIN. Both students and local teachers, meanwhile, praise the initiative. "The programme is important for the children in primary schools, and even in kindergartens,” said Nada Saleem, headmistress of the al-Derayah Primary School in Baghdad. She added that, nutrition aside, the programme also fosters greater cooperation between the families of students and school administrators. "I’m thankful for this meal,” beamed 8-year-old Omar Mohammed, a student at the al-Derayah school. “It helps me grow and keeps me healthy."