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Tendai Rupapa Senior Reporter
CHILDREN need access to a balanced diet to ensure they grow healthy, strong and with sharp minds that make their learning process easier, First Lady Dr Auxillia Mnangagwa has said.
Dr Mnangagwa added that school feeding promotes high attendance in school.
She made the remarks at the launch of a school feeding programme in Hatfield, Harare, tailored to ensure learners do not pull out of school due to hunger and participate fully in their studies and sports.
The mouth-watering dishes she prepared on open fires with the help of women from the community comprised sugar beans, sadza, rice in peanut butter, nhopi, beef, grilled rabbit meat, vegetables, sweet potatoes, tripe and offals.
The children also enjoyed some fruits, courtesy of the mother of the nation.
Amai Mnangagwa also held an interactive session with the community during which she urged the nation to maintain peace at all times, starting at family level, to ensure people live as one united family focusing on development.
Giving children nourishing food, the First Lady said, enhances the growth of their bodies and mental faculties to realise positive outcomes in their education.
Drugs, she said, must be shunned because they ruin lives, result in death and contribute to a worrying wave of bullying in schools.
“I want to thank you parents who have come with children here where we are focusing on our children who are still growing up. They. Today I have come to see what our children are eating, is it healthy food? These ages of young children demand that the mother be close to seeing the growth and development of the child and those who are still attending school looking at their health and the food you prepare for them when going to school. This makes their learning easier. We also see that mothers are important in this programme because we should know the food that we give to our children like breakfast, lunch and supper. We should cook and give children variety so that they grow up well. When packing a child’s lunch, as a mother you need to know what you are putting inside. I heard the speaker who spoke before me talking about how some parents were always packing sweets and some drinks which have no health benefit to children. Pack food that does not make a child tired or sleep in class. We need to pack healthy food for our children, healthy food like rice in peanut butter, sweet potatoes, mutakura and fruits they can chew like matohwe which strengthen the teeth. All these foods are readily available in our country and we say we came with the concept of drying some foods for future use. This makes us enjoy the food throughout the whole year. Our aim is for our children to grow healthy. Our children are at a stage where they are growing through the food they consume,” she said. Dr Mnangagwa, who is the country’s health ambassador, stressed that children must always be given access to a balanced diet.
“A balanced diet enables the children to grow well with strength and sharp minds. Children are supposed to eat a variety of foods that give them nutrients. If they lack, they lose the zeal to learn and abscond classes because they would not have eaten nourishing food that stays in their stomachs. Let us not make our children leave for school hungry. Our country is good in that the nutritious food is largely traditional grains.
“We ask if as mothers we have sorghum, millet or round nuts and groundnuts. Grain and mangai so that children leave for school well and spend the day full. We do not expect our children to develop kwashiorkor when we have grain, dried vegetables and fruits that grow on their own. I usually encourage people to take advantage of the rainy season to dry essential vegetables that grow during that time so that we have the food at all times. We want our children to excel in their studies so that they transform their lives and ours as parents because that is where our focus is. Foods like dried vegetables, millet sadza and rapoko and madora build bodies far greater than sweets. We are now about to get into the Pfumvudza period where we should not plant haphazardly. We must grow crops that give every family member good health. Community gardens enable us to have adequate food. Let us keep livestock in our homes like chickens. We want chickens, ducks, turkeys that you can fall back on to ensure the children eat healthy,” she said.
First Lady Dr Auxillia Mnangagwa grills rabbit meat for school children during her school feeding programme in Harare. — Pictures: John Manzongo
The mother of the nation, who has a passion for farming, spoke about her Agric4She programme which seeks to help improve nutrition and transform the lives of citizens.
“We have an Agric4She programme which is not specific to rural based women alone. We started it also with women in urban areas in mind. We are also giving them seeds and fertilizer so that they can grow food. Some benefitted in the last season. I have also brought reusable pads for girls from Grade 4 to Grade 7. This is one of the issues that trouble our children, the girls, and affects their class attendance. We want you mothers to monitor your children. Some children start their cycles early like in Grade 3 so you need to check them. Know your child and monitor how they do their things. I urge you teachers to sit down with the girls teaching them hygiene when they come to school. We want this to start at home.
We do not want to point fingers at one another that the teacher is not doing anything. No, the child is ours at home and we must start there while the teacher finishes off at school. I traversed the whole country with the aim of teaching our daughters and women to sew reusable pads. The pads can be washed and be reused for a long time without the child asking for money. We have a case that is disturbing us as parents, that of drugs. You saw the Iyasa group, I travel with them across the country. The play they enacted showed there is drug abuse in schools. Boys and girls are not behaving as expected. There is also bullying in schools and drugs are causing children to kill one another. We will be home only to be called that the child has died,” she said to applause.
Thousands of pupils from various school being served meals during First Lady Dr Auxillia Mnangagwa’s school feeding programme in Harare
A representative of the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education paid tribute to Dr Mnangagwa for her feeding programme.
“As a country we found a great teacher who gives lessons to people of all age groups from the young to the elderly. No one in Amai’s class snoozes. Today all of us grasped something. Whether you are a schoolchild, a father or a grandmother, all of us are learning and this is a gift that we were given by God. We thank you Amai. You have done good for us. As the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education, this school feeding programme you have brought is great work through which you have challenged our communities and parents so that we support these children so that they learn well. You have thrown us a challenge that as schools and parents we can feed these children,” he said.
Secretary for Harare Metropolitan Province, Mr Tafadzwa Muguti, praised the First Lady for the feeding programme.
“Through your feeding programme, you are ensuring optimal enrolment, improving school attendance, the health of our scholars and also retention and completion rates while enhancing the learning outcomes achieving the health and nutrition outcomes for all. Your excellency the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education has since launched a policy which shall see this programme that you are launching today being supported throughout the entire province. Amai we see that each time you roll out your programmes, we your children will be behind you seeing to it that all you start is carried forward. This programme that you have launched today, the provincial head Mr Mupunza and his district heads, headmasters and headmistresses will be required to keep on doing this programme so that our children access food in schools. Let me thank you for the sterling work that you are doing in Harare Metropolitan Province through your programmes including Gota/Nhanga/Ixhiba, cultural enhancement programmes, empowerment programmes. You saw it fit to give us wisdom so that children from humble backgrounds get hot meals at school and we want to thank you for this school feeding programme,” Mr Muguti said.
Pupils from various schools display their aerobic skills during their interactive session with First Lady Dr Auxillia Mnangagwa in Harare
Evangelist Nelly Gwatidzo called on communities to rally behind the First Lady’s well-meaning programmes.
“As ambassador for Health and Child Care she said let us return to our nutritious food. She did not start on feeding ECD and other classes. She starts from pregnancy where she fights promiscuity, drugs because and unhealthy eating while pregnant. Once a woman falls pregnant, the issue of health takes precedence. She says when you give birth ensure the child is breastfed and be hygienic so that a child does not wear a pamper from sunrise to sunset. The breast that is giving the child such must be cleaned.
“When weaning the child, introduce her to porridge with peanut butter. Our mother is saying we should stop weaning children with non-nutritive meals. She has also brought practicals where she is saying we should cook food that holds the child’s stomach. Cook food that does not make the child sleep in class. A child must not cry for sweets but give her maheu, mutakura, beans, sadza, potatoes and food that builds bodies. Some may think our mother has started projects because we are heading towards elections, no that is not the case. She started the projects long back before she even became a First Lady and she is saying after weaning the baby do not beg but arise and start working. Come and make petroleum jelly, cakes, detergents, carpentry and work with others. She is saying no to laziness. Women are the roots of the nation. Our mother’s showel is too big and everyone can fit. Our mother does not care which church you attend; she loves the whole nation equally.”
Amai Mnangagwa donated maize meal and instant porridge to the schools for continuation of the feeding programme.
In addition, she gave reusable pads to the girls.
leeroy
Online Reporter