Perched on a verdant hill, overlooking an evergreen lake, one couldn’t ask for a better setting for a residential school. But the pandemic forced the sprawling campus of Heritage Girls School, around 20 kilometres north of Udaipur, Rajasthan, to remain shuttered for the most part of last year.
Although students from across the country attended their online classes, almost every day, from the comfort of their homes, life was simply not the same. However, there was much rejoicing among the students when the school administration first broached the topic of reopening the institution with the parents, sometime in December last year.
Haiti: WFP provides a daily hot meal to 237,000 children in schools such as this one in the town of Jeremie in Grand Anse. Photo: WFP/Alexis Masciarelli
“Missing out on nutritious school meals is jeopardizing the futures of millions of the world’s poorest children we risk losing a whole generation,” said WFP’s Executive Director David Beasley. “We must support governments to safely reopen schools and start feeding these children again. For many, the nutritious meal they get in school is the only food they will receive all day.”
Yemen: A schoolboy takes a box of high-energy biscuits to his classmates in Aden. Photo: WFP/Hebatallah-Munassar
Nutrition crisis looms as more than 39 billion in-school meals missed since start of pandemic – UNICEF and WFP - World reliefweb.int - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from reliefweb.int Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Daily Monitor
Thursday February 04 2021
When Covid-19 caused closure of schools globally, including in Uganda last year, many school-going children had to miss out on school meals that they had relied upon for essential nutrition. The director of the school meals division at the World Food Programm, Carmen Burbano, referred to this mass closure as “probably the largest catastrophe in the education systems of our lifetime,” without the certainty of ever returning to the classroom. Nearly 1.6 billion children were put out of school unexpectedly.
Today, as many schools remain largely closed 11 months into the Covid-19 pandemic, school feeding programmes are not definite as the economy has been affected. Millions of households are suffering job and livelihood losses; reduced food production and distribution; as well as inadequate or lack of social safety nets, including school feeding programmes.
More than 39 billion school meals missed during COVID-19 pandemic: UN report downtoearth.org.in - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from downtoearth.org.in Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.