Guidelines for Emergency School Feeding Programmes Northern Sector Ols

WFPEMERGENCYSCHOOL FEEDING PROGRAMME

Northern Sector OLS

GUIDELINES

1. Eligibility Criteria for Schools

EmergencySchool Feeding (ESF) should be restricted to:

Geographical areas covered by the EMOP;

Priority is given to day schools in IDP camps or hosting IDP children in food insecure areas covered by the EMOP;

Priority is given to day primary schools. Pre-primary classes are only supported if the classes are part of an eligible primary school: eligibility will be decided upon on a case-by-case basis. Boarding schools, secondary schools and Koranic schools are not supported. Where funds are limited, girls schools are to be supported over boys schools to reduce the gender gap in education.

1. Beneficiaries

Pupils at eligible schools;

Teaching staff and those handling the meals (cooks and kitchen helpers) at eligible schools. The number of “non-pupils” fed should preferably remain under 5% and in no way exceed 10% of the total number of enrolled pupils at any given time.

1. Ration size

The same ration size applies for pupils of all ages in supported pre-primary and primary schools, and for non-pupils (teachers, cooks, kitchen helpers etc.).

Ration size per person per day:

This should be served as a mid-morning meal.

1. Objectives of an ESFP

The objectives should be tailored to the needs arising out of the specific situation you are working in. Some possible objectives of ESFP are:

To contribute to the improvement in household food security through the provision of a meal that functions as an income transfer;

To improve the pupils’ capacity to concentrate and assimilate information by relieving short-term hunger;

To contribute to increasing access to basic education for children in marginalised areas, especially girls, by encouraging their enrolment through the provision of a school meal;

To contribute to stabilising regular attendance in primary schools, especially of girls, ensuring that pupils spend adequate time in school daily by providing daily meals;

To contribute to increasing access to basic education for children in marginalised areas, especially for girls, by encouraging their retention in the school system until they complete the years offered at the school;

To contribute to retaining/attracting female teachers to work at the school;

To contribute to raising awareness amongst the local community on health/hygiene issues/ the value of education and the full participation of girls.

Improvement in nutritional status should not appear as an objective for two reasons. Firstly, WFP will be providing only 38% or roughly one third of a child’s nutritional needs through the ESFP and cannot guarantee the provision of the remaining calories needed for adequate nutrition. Secondly, WFP does not have the resources to set up a monitoring system complex enough to control for all other factors that determine a child’s nutritional status, and therefore cannot conclude with certainty that its food aid is the main reason behind improved nutrition.

1. Gender-sensitive Strategies

In light of the large gender gap in education in Sudan (girls are at a serious disadvantage), all projects should include clearly-defined strategies to narrow this gap.

Here are some examples of gender-sensitive strategies:

Advocacy with community leaders, the community at large and parents on the advantages of girls’ education and their full participation at school. Role plays and songs may be effective media of communication;

Building of school infrastructure essential to girls (e.g. separate latrines from the boys);

Building of school infrastructure to encourage applications from female teachers (e.g. sleeping quarters at the school for female teachers).

1. ESFP Pre-requisites

Before initiating an ESFP, you should ensure that:

The school is functional and recognised as being a school by the Ministry of Education;

A baseline assessment has been carried out of the school where an ESFP is proposed (see the baseline assessment form);

Wherever possible, an organisation such as an NGO (with experience in the education sector and a permanent presence in the project area) is identified to act as an implementing partner in the ESFP. This will help ensure that complimentary non-food inputs (e.g. kitchen utensils, benches and incentives for assistant teachers) are adequate at the school, and will facilitate monitoring and follow-up on requests for changes to be made.

A project proposal is drawn up by the implementing organisation (be it the partner NGO or the relevant Ministry for Education) and an LOA or APSS signed with WFP;

The necessary school infrastructure is in place:

Classrooms

Equipped Kitchen

Store

Latrines

Clean water source

It is not recommended to start the ESFP without such pre-requisites being in place. If the school infrastructure is not already in place, the feeding programme can start without it though the building of such infrastructure must be written into the project proposal and be carried out within the early stages of the programme.

1. Food Management

The amount of food to be cooked each day = number of pupils and eligible non-pupils in attendance that day x ration size/person/day.

It is recommended that the store-keeper be someone with very regular attendance at the school. Ideally, the store-keeper should not be the headmaster/mistress: this will ensure greater accountability.

Ensure that the store-keeper is trained in how to store the food aid;

Ensure that the relevant person is trained in how to calculate the daily food allocation and how to measure it and keep daily and monthly records of the food aid.

Ensure that the relevant person has accurate measurement tools (e.g. scoops, scales, measuring jug/bottle).

1. Food Preparation

Ensure that the kitchen is clean and meets with basic WFP specifications on hygiene. Consult WFP literature (see references listed under “Other Sources of Information”) or ask the advice of a specialist agency working in this field for detailed information on minimum hygiene standard and practices.

Ensure that the cooks are trained in how to prepare food hygienically and how to cook the food aid in different ways to ensure palatability and variety.

Consult the Sudan School Feeding Handbook produced by the Sudan Development Unit which contains information on food preparation including recipes and instructions on hygienic food storage, preparation and handling.

Ensure that there is some level of parental or pupil involvement in ensuring: (i) hygienic preparation of the food, (ii) well-cooked, palatable food, and (iii) sufficient amounts are ladled out to each person eating that day.

1. Health and Hygiene

Ensure that basic hygiene guidelines are followed with regard to washing of hands before eating the WFP school meal, and after use of the latrines. You should follow WHO guidelines as mentioned in the Sudan School Feeding Handbook. You could also ask a specialist agency to come to the school and train in hygiene if there is a need to do so. There is also potential for advocacy initiatives led by the school on hygiene issues.

Intestinal worms could lead to the nutrients in the school meals being poorly absorbed. You therefore need to ask a health agency in the area if the prevalence of intestinal helmiths amongst school-age children exceeds 50%. If it does, then WHO recommends the provision of a single-dose, broad-spectrum anthelminthic without prior individual screening of the pupils. A specialist agency should determine the need and the frequency of giving the de-worming drug in the ESFP school. The cost should be borne by the health agency.

1. Water and Sanitation

Ensure that there the school has access to a water supply for both drinking water and washing. Ensure that the quantity and quality of that water is adequate.

Ensure that the school has latrines. These should be separate for girls and for boys. The latrines should be cleaned daily.

For minimum standards, again consult the references listed under “Other Sources of Information.”

1. Parental and Pupil Involvement

The aim is to encourage parental and pupil involvement in the running and decisions of the school, including the emergency school feeding programme. The nature and extent of their involvement (whether financial or not) will depend on the context you are working in (e.g. level of income of the parents, spare time available). Parents could be encouraged to be involved through: helping build school infrastructure; providing condiments or other food stuffs to improve the quality or palatability of the school meal etc. Parents and pupils could be encouraged to be involved in: helping prepare and cook the school meals; supervising aspects of the ESFP such as measurement of the food, food preparation, storage and handling as well as washing of hands before eating and so forth. Parents, pupils and teachers could be encouraged to develop advocacy initiatives on issues relating to the ESFP.

You should note that despite food preparation being a traditionally female task in Sudan, male pupils and teachers and pupils’ fathers tend to dominate decision-making relating to the ESFP in many parts of the Northern Sector. You should therefore try to redress this imbalance by actively encouraging the involvement of female pupils in positions of responsibility in the school that relate to the ESFP (e.g. supervision of cooking of the meals, ladling the food, washing of hands before eating etc.). You should also encourage the involvement of the mothers of the pupils and female teaching staff in position of responsibility relating to the ESFP (e.g. supervising the preparation of the school meals, participation in school boards and committees where ESFP issues are discussed).

1. Complementary Projects

School infrastructure

Where the necessary school infrastructure does not exist and impedes the smooth implementation of an ESFP, WFP must first of all approach the Ministry for Education and/or implementing NGO to fund and carry out the requisite works. If such funds are not available, WFP should ask the school to ask the parents or local community to carry out such works free of charge. If the community or parents are unable to do so for economic reasons, then WFP may use food-for-work (FFW) to rehabilitate or build the necessary infrastructure using labour from the local community. Such work will also require non-food items and outside expertise: other agencies working in the area should be approached to provide such items and technical know-how. Typical FFW projects could include the rehabilitation or construction of classrooms, a store, kitchen, latrines or sleeping quarters for female teaching staff (where it may encourage the retention or applications from female teachers). The number of days where the community will work for free and the number of days they will receive payment through FFW, will depend on the situation on the ground. Outside months where a general distribution is on-going, work days paid through FFW may be preferable to free work. The design, implementation and monitoring of such FFW would be based on WFP guidelines for FFW projects.

School Nutrition/Skills-building

Where possible, school vegetable gardens should be set up: this would provide the pupils with skills in vegetable production and could produce vegetables used to improve the nutritional content and palatability of the school meals. An outside agency should be approached to provide the necessary expertise and non-food inputs. When thinking of setting up a school vegetable garden project, you should ensure that the vegetable plot is safe from thieves and that sufficient land and water is available.

Adult Literacy

Some research points to a link between poor pupil enrolment, attendance and retention in the school system in communities where parents are illiterate themselves. Another priority FFW/T activity is therefore adult literacy classes in the communities where ESFPs exist. Where resources are limited, places on the courses should first be offered to parents of pupils supported through an ESFP. The teacher would receive a food-for-work ration for each day of teaching. It is preferable not to provide any food-for-training ration to the parents attending the adult literacy classes, the idea being that those who turn enrol will be those who really want to learn. However, in certain communities, a FFT ration may be necessary to compensate them for the time that would otherwise have been spent obtaining food for their families. This can help ensure regular attendance. This would have to be organised using agencies working in the area of adult literacy. Note that many NGOs now prefer using more people-centred and participatory adult literacy methods instead of the traditional ones. For instance, the “Reflect” methodology first developed by the World University Service (WUS) is now being used by various organisation in Sudan including GOAL, ACORD and IRC, to teach functional literacy to adults in Arabic, and soon also in indigenous languages.

13.Use of Empty Packaging

The implementing partner (i.e. the school or an agency) should return all empty packaging to WFP who will tender the materials and hold the funds generated for:

The support of micro-projects that benefit girls and women in the project area; and/or

Missing non-food items needed for the implementation of the ESFP projects that cannot be provided by the NGO concerned (e.g. materials for advocacy initiatives). Again, the end result should be to benefit girls and women in particular. For example, cash obtained from the sale of packaging can be used to buy materials to make posters used in advocacy in favour of sending girls to school.

WFP should consult its implementing partner on which projects to support and non-food items to purchase using the funds.

Under certain circumstances, WFP can allow the implementing partner to distribute empty packaging to pupils and teaching staff at the school supported through an ESFP. For instance, the school can be asked to set up a prize system for good academic performance where empties can be given as part of the prize.

14.Duration of Support

Support should not exceed a nine month period within the scholastic year. The exception is that support can also be given to pupils and teachings staff during the exam periods that may fall outside the typical, nine month scholastic year;

Support must start within the EMOP funding period, but can run beyond it if the scholastic year finishes after the end of the EMOP period.

For an ESFP programme to be approved to continue, the following are necessary:

Positive recommendation to that effect by both WFP staff and the implementing partner;

Written commitment by the implementing partner that it will continue to play its role;

WFP funds are secured.

In the long-term, the ESFP programme should be phased out when the IDP population returns to their place of origin or choice. If this occurs, school feeding could be instituted in their place of relocation should there be the need.

15.WFP Visibility

Ensure WFP visibility at the school through, for instance, official WFP posters and signs. Using money obtained through the sale of non-food items, you could organise drawing competitions in the schools of an area to draw posters on themes related to school feeding, or related to educational or health and hygiene messages (again linked to food).

16.Other Sources of Information

For detailed information on the points covered above, you should read:

1. The “School Feeding Handbook” by WFP, UNESCO and WHO, Rome 1999.
2. The SudanSchool Manual by the WFP Sudan Development Unit.
3. “Establishment and Care of School, Home and CommunityGardens”, UNICEF Khartoum, SGNED, MOE, October 1999 Khartoum. Available from Mutinta Hambayi, Area Emergency Officer, WFP Khartoum.

1

Final version – April 2002