Eating well helps you learn better

Nutrition is good for Education
Having healthy meals is a right for students. And to guarantee that our children and teenagers have access to appropriate meals in state schools, the Bahia State Government has been intensifying successful actions that make a positive contribution, with the National School Meals Program.

In the past seven years, there has been a 236% increase, with investment rising from 27 million Reais in 2006 to 90 million in 2013. The number of children benefitting also increased, and now the food is also available to more than one million children, including middle school students as well as children in day care, indigenous schools, quilombolas (communities of descendants of slaves), special education students, and participants in the holistic education program. The goal is to contribute to the students’ growth, development, education, and academic performance, in addition to encouraging healthy nutritional habits.

 

The best recipe for guaranteeing a universal right
Care for the nutritional habits of the population has become an important issue on the state's political agenda. This concern, which previously involved making food available, has also come to include the issue of nutritional quality and appropriate portions.

Thus, the menu of the School Meals program is designed by the Secretary of Education’s team of nutritionists, taking into account the cultural and culinary values of each Territory of Identity.

The efficiency and the proper implementation of the program are supervised by the School Meals Administration of the Secretariat of Education, which organizes monthly audits in a random sampling of five schools as well as regular technical visits to the 1,385 participating schools. During these visits, satisfaction surveys are also conducted with at least 100 participating students.

Family Agriculture: The future of Bahia is on the table

Law n. 11.947/2009 states that at least 30% of the money transferred by the National Education Development Fund (FNDE) for school meals must be used for the purchase of products from family farming, from rural family entrepreneurs or their organizations, prioritizing agrarian reform settlements, traditional indigenous communities, quilombola communities, and shellfish gatherers.

In Bahia, the Secretariat of Agriculture and the Company for Regional Development and Action (CAR) enforce the law and promote regional development through institutional purchases. The Family Farming producers can thus access a market that guarantees the sale of their products to the School Meals program throughout the State.    

Regulation:
The Secretariat of Education, in partnership with other state institutions, created an accreditation system, which was approved in a public hearing with the presence of representatives of society, in order to allow providers from the entire state to participate in the purchase processes of products for the School Meals program. This guarantees the democratization of the financial resources as well as faster product supply.

To guarantee quality, regularity, and fair pricing, the Family Farming Warehouse and economic solidarity program was created, bringing together the cooperatives with all the products for purchase by the schools in a single place. Salvador and Serrinha already have this Warehouse.

In the other inland cities, purchases are made by the schools dealing directly with the cooperatives, under the guidance of the State Secretariats of Agriculture and Education. The two secretariats organize a meeting with the Regional Educational Boards of Directors (Direc) to guide the purchase and distribution of the food. During these visits, the boards of directors receive region-specific menus, informational material with recommendations for storage and conservation of food items, a Family Farming primer, and comprehensive information about the accreditation process, in order to know where they can and should buy.

School Meals and Family Farming: A partnership that works
The association between school meals and family farming guarantees two important pillars of the program: sustainable local development and the quality of the food that will be on the students’ plates.

The Government of Bahia, believing in regional potential and encouraging investments in products that can effectively generate employment and income, promotes the development of various rural and agricultural activities, thus generating a cycle of benefits that can already be perceived throughout the state:

•    More regional development and combat of poverty, through socio-productive inclusion;
•    Productive benefit for more than 300 families, which have yet another guaranteed channel for their products;
•    Educational and social benefit for more than one million students, who can count on getting a healthy and balanced meal at school;
•    Savings for the parents of the students participating in the program, in addition to the adoption of healthy eating habits for the whole family

Zero Hunger Milk and School Cisterns. Student nutrition that goes far beyond school meals

Zero Hunger Milk Program
This program aims to combat hunger and malnutrition of children who live in precarious social conditions or a state of nutritional insecurity, through the distribution of free milk.

It benefits around 100,000 children ages 2-7 in day care centers and pre-schools. They receive 1-2 liters of milk per day at school, which they bring home. Currently, 145,521 liters of milk are distributed daily in 320 cities in the state, guaranteeing a nutritional accompaniment to the school meals that the child receives.  

School Cisterns
Following the commitments made in the National Pact “A World for Children and Teenagers in the Semi-Arid Region,” which aims to ensure a dignified life for children and teenagers in the region, the Government of Bahia, in a pioneering initiative in Brazil, secured the storage of rainwater for drinking, in order to serve the nutritional and environmental education in the schools.

43 School Communities in the rural area of 13 municipalities that have little or no access to water benefitted from the construction of 43 cisterns for consumption and 43 cisterns for production in the schools, as well as 811 additional cisterns for consumption for low-income families.

The school community (parents, students, teachers, and employees) also participated, learning about environmental care and water conservation. In addition to improving the quality of the school meals, the project encouraged the creation of community gardens. It is an effective project that is promoting good citizenship in the quest for sustainable living in the semi-arid region.