District Assembly to measure body mass of school fed children

Wa, June 3, GNA - The Lambussie/Karni District Assembly is assisting the District Health Management Team to visit all schools implementing the Ghana School Feeding Programme (GSFP) in the district to measure the height and body mass of the children.

This initiative forms part of measures being adopted by stakeholders to play their roles effectively towards the attainment of the objectives of the feeding programme.

Research conducted on the GSFP by SENDS Ghana revealed that institutional collaboration for the successful implementation of the programme was very weak hence the need for the new measures. This was made known in the quarterly issue of "HIPC Watch Update", a newsletter published by SEND Ghana, an NGO operating in the Northern, Upper East and Upper West regions.

SEND Ghana said the Ministry of Food and Agriculture has started forming Farmers' Based Organizations in the district to provide complementary services to support the smooth implementation of the programme.

It is the expectation of the ministry to provide technical and extension services to farmers to increase production and to provide a market value chain linking farmers to the GSFP. This would not only boost local production but also increase the income levels of small holder farmers in deprived communities within the district, it stated. It said the District Assembly had also taken steps to reconstitute the kitchen staff of all the 10 feeding schools in order to provide quality assurance for the food that would be provided to the children. 03 June 10