Loving meals for children in the highlands of Nghe An
(Baonghean.vn) - In order for students to go to school regularly and have delicious, nutritious meals, many teachers in Nghe An are trying to raise funds for their students' meals.
“Love porridge” for malnourished students
Lanh Thi Phuong Thao in Bua Lau village, Chau Tien commune (Quy Chau) is studying in a 3-year-old kindergarten class, but her body is as small as a 2-year-old child. Thao's situation is pitiful, because when she was only 6 months old, her mother passed away; her father has no stable job and works far away, so Thao lives with her grandparents. Because of difficult conditions, her grandparents are old, so it is difficult for her to receive proper and adequate care.
Thao is one of the first students of Chau Tien Kindergarten to receive support from the school in the “Love Porridge” program. The whole school has nearly 300 students, but before that, according to a survey at the beginning of the year, each year the school has about 10.5% of malnourished children, mainly underweight and stunted. These children often come from disadvantaged families, poor and near-poor households, with parents working far away and often living with grandparents, so their knowledge and skills in child care are limited.
Based on this reality, to help children have healthy bodies, the school board has mobilized all teachers in the whole school, each contributing a little money to organize weekly loving porridge meals. Teachers even organize many activities such as car washing to allocate funds for the program.
To ensure adequate nutrition for the students, the menu of “Love Porridge” is also changed regularly, some days there is mackerel porridge, some days there is pork porridge, some days the children get to eat egg porridge, chicken porridge. The porridge has green vegetables, tubers, and fruits, making it eye-catching and stimulating for children to eat. Although the amount of porridge distributed each day is not much, just over 30 servings, it has contributed significantly to improving the nutrition of the children.
Teacher Tran Thi Cuc - Principal of Chau Tien Kindergarten added: “Not only students but also many teachers in our school are in difficult circumstances. Therefore, within our own capacity, we have only been able to help a small number of students in the school. The value of the meals is not large, but we hope that nutritious meals will help improve the health of the children. Moreover, we hope that from these meals, parents will raise their awareness, understanding and join hands with teachers to take care of their children. The good news for us is that after more than 1 year of implementing the program, many children are no longer malnourished, their height and weight have changed positively.”
From open letters
Mai Son Kindergarten is located in a border commune, a remote, extremely disadvantaged area of Tuong Duong district. The majority of students in the school are Mong, many schools have more than 90% of students from poor or near-poor households, life is very difficult.
Currently, 100% of students in the school are receiving support from the State, but with the support level of only 150,000 VND/child, and the support money is usually received at the end of the semester, so maintaining meals at school is very difficult. In previous years, the school organizedboardingParents bring their children food to school every day, and the school provides extra soup. But the simple meals that parents cook themselves are not enough to ensure nutrition for the children.
Teacher Hoang Thi Lan - Vice Principal of Mai Son Kindergarten said that in the first days she took up her duties at the school, when she checked the children's health, up to 40% were malnourished - the highest rate in the district and twice as high as schools in areas outside National Highway 7.
Faced with this reality, she has connected with many organizations and sponsors to "beg for rice" for her students. In the open letters calling for support for lunch money for students at Pha Khao, Huoi To, Pieng Coc, Cha Lo schools, teacher Hoang Thi Lan personally sent them to the Nghe An Child Care Project and charitable organizations, with the simple wish of having nutritious meals for her students.
Pha Khao Kindergarten has 22 children of school age, but the school has only recruited 14 children. The children's situation is very pitiful because their parents work for the company, the children live at home with their grandparents, and their main source of income is from farming. As teachers at the school, seeing the children's "brought-from-home" meals, we could not hold back our tears and felt sad when the children's main food was mostly instant noodles and instant noodle soup, some better-off children had some fried eggs, fried instant noodles with eggs, rat meat, frog meat...
After the open letters, joy came to the students of Mai Son Kindergarten when recently, the school received a response from the Raising Children Project and a charity organization in Ho Chi Minh City. Thanks to that, up to now, 84 students of the school have received support money, with each meal costing from 7,000 - 10,000 VND/child per day. Teachers in the school will use this money to buy salty food. The remaining rice, vegetables, tubers, and fruits, the school will ask for from other benefactors or parents will contribute more. More than 3 months after the nutritious meals were implemented, the changes were clearly visible when the children gained weight. Recently, many teachers even suggested reducing the children's food portions because some children were overweight.
“Preschool students in remote areas are facing many difficulties. Therefore, when writing the letter, our wish was to have nutritious meals for the children, so that they can go to school with peace of mind, without fear of hunger. In addition to mobilizing for children to have full meals, we also call on benefactors to support money to buy cooking utensils, living utensils, and repair facilities for schools,” teacher Hoang Thi Lan shared.
Over the years, there have been hundreds of open letters from teachers and school principals to philanthropists, hoping to share the difficulties of students in mountainous areas. Along with that, thousands of students have received help, with the desire to join hands to take care of meals for poor students.
According to Ms. Do Thi Nga - Head of the Standing Committee of the National Volunteer Network in the Central region - National Volunteer Center, in charge of the Nghe An Child Feeding Project, after 5 years of implementing the program, up to now, more than 5,000 students at 80 schools in Nghe An have been and are being supported with regular meals with a support level of 150,000 VND/month. "We have tried to respond to all the open letters sent by the schools with practical actions and are very happy to have contributed our small part in bringing nutritious meals to students".
Not only providing delicious meals, the support of volunteer programs also contributes to improving the quality of education in mountainous areas, maintaining stability and diligence in schools. At Muong Ai Primary Boarding School for Ethnic Minorities (Ky Son), teacher Nguyen Sy Dong - Principal of the school happily said that after 1 year of receiving support from benefactors, especially the Raising Children Project, students have been able to eat and sleep at school, receive support for school supplies, clothes and enjoy many delicious dishes "beyond imagination". Thanks to that, the quality of teaching at the school has also improved, classes have maintained their numbers, children are diligent and develop comprehensively.
Meanwhile, at Bao Nam Primary School (Ky Son), after the meals provided by sponsors, the most obvious effect was that the school's students' height and weight improved. "The school has also created special trust among parents when sending their children to study at the school, the quality of education has improved significantly," said teacher Pham Ba Duong - Principal of the school.
The kindness of teachers and the sharing of volunteers are also contributing to Nghe An gradually improving the rate of malnourished children, narrowing the gap in malnutrition index between regions, especially in mountainous districts.
