PCD holds workshop on healthy eating

A two-day training of trainers’ workshop on healthy eating has been organised by the Partnership for Child Development (PCD) and Ghana School Feeding Programme (GSFP) in Accra.

The workshop, which is under the PCD/GSFP- Dubai Cares Nutrition Project, is to equip participants with knowledge on healthy eating and other complementary health issues aimed to promote positive behavioral change amongst school children.

It brought together School Health Education Programme personnel from the Ghana Education Service and district nutrition officers of the Ghana Health Service from 15 districts within the 10 regions of Ghana.

The workshop is part of the school level behaviour change communication activities being implemented by the project, and participants would be taken through a healthy eating manual developed by PCD.

Some of the key issues to be discussed include; common nutrition problems among children of school going age, what is healthy eating, food safety, personal and environmental hygiene, prevention of worm infestation and malaria, and the benefits of a healthy child to the family, among other things.

Participants are expected to go back and train basic school teachers within their districts who would be using the developed manual to educate the pupils on these issues with the hope that they would be able to adopt the good practices to grow and remain healthy.

Mr Fred Amese, Nutrition Programme Officer of PCD, said the PCD nutrition project was very comprehensive and outlined some of the activities within it as the development of the school meal planner and handy measures, the community level behaviour change communication activities targeting children and caregivers on the importance of healthy eating and proper sanitation which are currently on-going within the project districts.

Mrs Getrude Oboshie Ananse-Baiden, Country Manager, said PCD worked to improve the health and nutrition of the school-age child in developing countries basically by adopting a cross sectorial approach to develop the most effective scaled and sustainable solutions.

She said in Ghana PCD had been working with the GSFP to strengthen its implementation since 2010, adding; “we are hosted by the Noguchi Memorial Institute and our country activities are funded by the Bill and Melinda Gate Foundation and Dubai Cares.

“A number of activities/support has been provided by PCD including the Development of Technical Assistance Plan which outlines the objects of the GSFP and identifies the areas where the GSFP requires support.”

She also mentioned the ongoing impact evaluation exercise aimed at assessing the impact of the GSFP through a randomised control trial, and the pilot interventions expected to generate concrete evidence to inform the up scaling of the programme.

Mrs Edna Apea Gandah, a Monitoring and Evaluation Officer of the GSFP, encouraged participants to take the training seriously and endeavour to go back and ensure positive health behaviours within the districts and communities they were coming from.

PCD’s nutrition programme is being funded by Dubai Cares, a philanthropic organisation of the United Arab Emirates.

It is a non-governmental organisation working in the area of school health and nutrition and providing technical support to GSFP.