African Children’s Aid Education and Development Foundation (ACAEDF), a non-governmental organisation, has launched a school feeding programme to develop a sustainable food self-sufficiency model around Nigeria.
The maiden edition of this project was implemented with four public schools in the region of Akwa Ibom to give 70 percent of the school’s feeding requirements for the first six months of the school’s academic session. The project is known as School Farm for School Meal (SF4SM) and is funded by the Embassy of Denmark in Nigeria beneath its Sustainable Development Goals facility and is being executed and handled by ACAEDF in Nigeria.
While speaking during the launch of the scheme in Uyo, David Umem, the Akwa Ibom State, Founder and Executive Director of the NGO, said that it is a transformative scheme, stating its benefits will not be only for students but their parents as well as they are the stakeholders in the life of their children.
The intervention has been launched with government schools in Akwa Ibom, and it is also hoped that the project will be expanded to other states of Nigeria.
Presently, the project will initiate with feeding around 2000 children daily for 65 days, and this will be over 97,500 meals made and distributed to the target children.
Furthermore, during these 65 days, aquaculture practice and host knowledge transfer seminars in primary schools will also be introduced, targeting around 500 students in the selected schools.
The Training models under this project will also consist of skill training for 30 fish farmers in sustainable feed harnessing, 40 teachers in advanced school gardening techniques, aquaculture practice utilising improved child participatory methods, and 30 school cooks prepared to enhance dietary diversity and innovative nutrition.”
Officials of the Akwa State Government who officially started the project, representatives of the pilots’ schools and community-based committee members praised ACAEDF and the Danish embassy in Nigeria for beginning the project and promised to give the necessary support to improve the success of the project.
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