Ministry to provide fresh produce to students under the School Feeding Programme

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Ministry to provide fresh produce to students under the School Feeding Programme

The Ministry of Social Development and Family Services (MSDFS) has announced a second phase of the temporary food support to children registered under the National School Feeding Programme.

According to a release from the Ministry, the initiative is supported by the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Agriculture, Land and Fisheries, under NAMDEVCO.

The Ministry said that this has become necessary as the Government envisages that there will continue to be an urgent need to provide food security, where the nutritional needs of students are maintained, while they are away from school.

This is in light of Government’s continued efforts to reduce the spread of COVID-9 and the decision for the virtual reopening of the first term of the 2020/2021 academic year scheduled to run from September 1st to December 11th, 2020.

It said as an immediate social support measure, these three Ministries will all collaborate for this critical food security initiative.

It is proposed that for each child registered with the School Feeding Programme, the parent/guardian will be provided with food support for the period (Mid-October to Mid-December 2020), based on the following guidelines:

  • The parent/guardian will receive temporary food support in the form of a one-off market box of fresh produce valued at two hundred and fifty dollars ($250.00), to cover the school term between October and December. This initiative will cost taxpayers a total expenditure of Twenty-Nine (29) Million Dollars ($29,000,000.00).
  • The Ministry of Education, through the National School Nutrition Programme, will be responsible for identifying the composition of fresh produce to include in the market boxes, identifying all parents/guardians, disaggregated by schools, of the children registered with the School Feeding Programme, and to make all the necessary administrative arrangements for the delivery of the market boxes to parents/guardians.

The MSDFS and by extension the Government of Trinidad and Tobago has reaffirmed its commitment to ensuring that no one is left behind – no citizen goes to bed hungry, no child is deprived of a meal and no parent is unable to put food on his or her table.

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