By Aisha Gambo
The National Orientation Agency (NOA), Kaduna Directorate on Thursday urged Nigerians to support and protect the National Home Grown School Feeding Programme (NHGSFP).
Zubair Galadima-Soba, State Director of the programme told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Thursday in Kaduna that it has numerous benefits to school children.
“The NOA in collaboration with the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development has begun a sensitisation campaign to enlighten communities on the benefit of the programme.
“The sensitisation exercise is ongoing across the 23 local government areas of the state by Community Mobilisation Officers (COMO) to create awareness on the programme and its benefits,” he said.
He said the objective of the sensitisation exercise was to clarify some misconceptions about the programme which included the use of funds and the recruitment of cooks.
The director noted that the state government recruits the cooks but the federal government pays them directly adding that the feeding cycle was 20 days per month.
He explained that the school feeding programme was free for pupils and the menus were deliberately designed to optimise child nutrition which should be followed strictly.
According to him, communities were expected to own the programme and become conscious of the benefits to the community which included child nutrition, empowerment of local women in the area.
Galadima-Soba added that the programme would improve the local economy by giving local farmers and traders the opportunity to supply food items for the programme.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that NOA was part of the team that distributed enumeration forms to various schools enrolled for the programme.
NOA also assisted in enumeration at hard-to-reach areas and difficult terrains in the state.(NAN)
