On 8th March 2023, the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection (MoGCSP) through the Ghana School Feeding Programme (GSFP) with support from the African Union Development Agency (AUDA), trained about 150 caterers on the usage of innovative tools.
The event was held under the theme “Celebrating Women and Empowering Communities Through Innovative Digital Tools for the Home-Grown School Feeding Programme.”
The training forms part of initiatives to strengthen their abilities in locally produced school feeding, provide them with cutting-edge digital tools to enhance their digital competence, and foster their leadership abilities.
As the day coincided with the International Women’s Day, the event offered the opportunity to recognize and appreciate the essential role of women in the School Feeding Programme.
Speaking at the event, the Deputy Minister for Gender, Children and Social Protection, Hon. Francisca Oteng Mensah praised the caterers for their enormous effort to providing pupils with nourishing meals since the programme’s inception.
She also expressed gratitude for the technical and financial help provided by the development partners, adding that the government will keep making investments and ensuring that pupils were given a healthy, balanced diet.
The Honorable Deputy Minister charged the caterers to replicate lessons learnt during the training so as to continue providing quality and nutritional meals to all deserving pupils.
GSFP’s deputy national coordinator, Mr. Abass Kwadwo Acquah, revealed that the program has made significant strides in the areas of nutrition, health, and education, and that overall, it has improved domestic food production by fostering an organized, stable market.
He continued by saying that the training would increase their abilities and provide them the freedom to work and support their families and communities. “So far, the GSFP has directly empowered around 22,000 caterers, cooks, and numerous suppliers, who are primarily females. With better funding, we can succeed, he remarked.
Mrs Kefilwe Moalisi, a representative for AUDA-NEPAD stated that the organization would keep working with farmers to promote their products and develop markets for them. “The focus of our theme is cutting-edge digital tools. As a result, we are making the current school menus better by employing a technology called the school newsletter”. The tool according to her analyzes the existing menu adding that the use of digitization and other measuring tools will aid in preparing balanced dishes.
The caterers received training on how to prepare and upgrade the quality of healthy meals for pupils using meal planning software specifically intended for schools, keep items in season, and make the most of locally produced foods.
The basic concept of the GSFP, is to provide pupils in public primary schools in the poorest areas with one hot, nutritionally adequate meal on every school going day, using locally grown foodstuffs. The GSFP was designed to link school feeding to agricultural development through the purchase and use of local farm produce.
