COVID-19 & School Meals around the World

The Global FoodBanking Network (GFN) supports food banks in over 40 countries. Food banks are community-based ​hunger relief organizations that provide food support to social service agencies, schools, and communities to feed people in need. ​Food banks in 18 countries implement feeding programs for school-age children, including school meals. During the COVID-19 crisis, GFN is providing ​technical assistance, sharing best practices and innovations, and offering direct grants to food banks in its network to help them continue providing services to the most vulnerable, including children and families affected by school closures.

JAM’s school feeding activities in South Africa, Angola, Mozambique and South Sudan have been suspended since early March 2020 and the children are now at home with their families. As a result, more than 550,000 children in schools and ECD centers will not receive the nutritional support that they have been benefiting from. The halt in nutrition support and learning is going to reverse most of the (little) nutritional as well as educational gains that the children have had.

These are children who already live in the contexts of extreme poverty, economic vulnerability and crisis, where children are at high risks of exploitation and abuse.

Most of the children live in fragile countries and come from families and communities that experience chronic food insecurity. For most families JAM’s school meals provide them crucial food and financial relief.

This has impacted on our work of providing a daily nutritious meal to over 500,000 children (in schools & ECD centers) and we are having to rethink and possibly restructure our school feeding modality.

Continued lockdown and closing of schools and subsequent suspension of school feeding is likely to emerge with negative effects on the health and development of children. These could include developmental effects, and behaviour problems – primarily aggression, anxiety, depression and more. Some of these children could already be dealing with the trauma of losing family members to COVID-19.

By being out of protective environments, girls are likely to drop out of school. The majority of them are currently vulnerable to sexual abuse and early pregnancy.

JAM South Africa undertook distribution of take-home rations for children immediately it was announced that ECD centres were to close. This distribution was accompanied by hand washing and sanitization training as a method of arresting the spread of the virus. JAM South Africa now has an emergency food distribution of CSB and other non-perishable food products under way.

JAM South Africa is also exploring food vouchers or cash vouchers which will contribute to the sustainability of informal trading stores, small grocery outlets and other retailers. The children are in their homes and in order to feed them, we need to provide food to their households. This distribution will include essential sanitation and   hygiene products as well as COVID-19 prevention awareness and training.

In our JAM South Sudan program, we are informed that WFP is hoping to launch a revised strategy that will be tested in the coming week and were advised that WFP is considering using cashless mechanisms, including transfers to phones and to bank accounts as possible options / solutions. Digital food vouchers are another option. Families could use the vouchers to buy food directly from stores.

We are reviewing and initiating similar activities in Angola, Mozambique, Rwanda and Sierra Leone, according to availability of funds and in-country supplies.

This is a health crisis with significant implications of food security and nutrition. We need the donors to maintain focus not only on health implications, but also the impact on child nutrition and wellbeing. We are concerned about the children. Our aim is to sustain the provision of nutrition especially to school going children in a safe way. We agree with the suggestion of home-school feeding model.

How can the global school meals network support their work?
We need you to continue mobilizing and lobbying country authorities, WFP and NGOs to support and facilitate home-school feeding.

Our school meals program in Cameroon has been interrupted by COVID-19, depriving 83,790, students in French Cameroon in addition to the 22,000 who had been affected by the socio-political crisis in the North West region of the country.

In in lieu of the school meals, Nascent has taken alternative measures including the provision of take-home rations to ensure that children from poor households do not remain hungry during the school closures. We have developed a rations distribution roster to limit the number of parents who are on campus to receive food at a given time. This will ensure that parents maintain the social distancing as required by the CDC.  We have heard that WFP is delivering meals to children at home in other countries, however, this is not feasible in Cameroon because of the challenging terrain and the poor state of the roads.  

How can the global school meals network support their work?

It would be helpful if GCNF could advocate with organizations such as the African Union to reinforce the WHO and CDC guidelines with all the governments to ensure that the measures are applied across the continent and regions of the world to curb the spread of the virus.

We would like to start with good news – on the 1st of March, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law on providing all primary school students with free hot meals. According to this law, primary school students will receive free hot meals at least once a day, and the meal must contain a hot dish and a hot drink. The transition to providing free meals to all primary school students should be completed in stages starting from September 1, 2020 and ending September 1, 2023.

At the moment, the situation with school meals is different in Russia. Some regions fund school meals. For example, in Moscow, Chukotka, and the Komi Republic, all primary school students receive free school meals. In Saint Petersburg parents pay for half of their children meals. But mostly free school meals are provided to privileged categories -children from low-income and large families, as well as children with disabilities. School meals costs and student diets also differs by region. The cost of one school breakfast or lunch varies on average from $0.45 to $1.8.

With the spread of COVID-19, all Russian schools switched to distance learning until April 12 (according to current information). In this regard, in order to help families in need, it was decided to issue food packages for children who receive free school meals. At the moment, Moscow, Moscow region and other regions have already confirmed the delivery of food packages. So, in the Moscow region, 480,000 students will receive food packages, in Bashkiria – 83,000 students, in the Yaroslavl region – 39,000 students.

The food packages will be handled through the schools. Parents can pick up it from schools themselves or with the help of volunteers. In order to comply with all security measures, it is suggested to select a time interval to receive the package to avoid crossing with another family. Recipients are asked to come wearing masks, gloves and documents. Also, the start date of issuing food packages depends on the region. For example, in Moscow, food packages have already begun to be issued. In some regions, food packages will be issued later, but with compensation for the days that children spent at home and did not receive free meals. The composition of the food package varies, mainly it consist of products with a long shelf life – cereals, flour, pasta and confectionery, canned food, sugar, juice, tea, and milk. All food packages are approved by Rospotrebnadzor (Federal service for supervision of consumer rights protection and human welfare).

Partners from the private sector, like Tetra Pak, are working in collaboration with customers and stakeholders to ensure the food supply chain is maintained, and are in contact with relevant organisations and stakeholders, both locally and regionally, to share innovative solutions and best practices being used in school feeding programs (SFP) around the world.

In China, for example, Tetra Pak has been actively working with customers, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Agriculture, and the Dairy Association of China to ensure delivery of school milk and feeding continues to children at home.

To make this happen there are two methods in place where parents can pick-up the milk from the schools, and they also have “on-line orders” and “non-contact delivery” to facilitate the ordering and distribution of school milk to students´ homes.  The students’ general information is submitted such as: ID, school, class, and parents´ contact number.  The delivery person stores the milk in designated storage cabinets and provides a password by mobile.  With the password, the cabinet can be opened and milk collected. The receiver and delivery person has no face-to-face handover. 

Learn more about how Tetra Pak is supporting country governments and their partners to provide nutrition to children amid school closures.