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Teachers pick nutrition tips at Nestlé Healthy Kids Programme

Teachers pick nutrition tips at Nestlé Healthy Kids Programme

About 40 teachers including headmasters and School Health Education Programme (SHEP) coordinators from the Agona East District in the Central Region, have undergone a day’s training on nutrition and hygiene.

Selected from five basic schools in the district, the training was aimed at exposing the teachers to some of the practical steps that they could use to expose pupils to eating balanced diets daily.

The schools are Ofoase Agona East District Assembly (AEDA) Basic, Kenyankor Catholic Primary, Asafo AEDA “B” Basic, Otwekrom AEDA Basic and Duabone Catholic Basic. 

 

The training was part of an international programme being implemented in over 80 countries across the world and dubbed ‘Nestlé Healthy Kids Programme’.

In Ghana, the programme is being implemented by Nestlé Ghana in collaboration with the Ghana Education Service (GES) and the Nutrition and Food Science Department of the University of Ghana and facilitated by Strategic Kreation Services, a child focused organisation, with an aim to raise the nutritional awareness of pupils and teachers and active physical activity.

So far, the programme has benefitted 14,000 pupils and trained 360 teachers and district SHEP co-ordinators in Ghana.

Ms Emelia Ayesu, a Nutritionist at the Nutrition and Food Science Department, University of Ghana, Legon, who took the participating teachers through nutrition education of children, said as part of the programme, a teacher’s manual had been developed to guide teachers and a child reader to help practicalise what was taught in the classroom.

Also, she said, a flip chat on how to select balanced diets had been developed for lower primary school children.

She then took the teachers through what constitutes good nutrition, vitamins, proteins and carbohydrates, saying that they were essential in the daily diets of children. She also called on the teachers to encourage pupils to drink water frequently, saying that the human body loses about 1.5 litres of water daily and, therefore, needed to be replenished daily.

Another nutritionist, Mr Isaac Agbemafle from the University of Ghana, who took the teachers through food hygiene, called on the teachers to teach their pupils how to avoid food contamination by storing both cooked and uncooked food properly.

He also called on them to encourage the pupils to exercise daily.

Mr Danley Colecraft Aidoo of the Department of Agricultural Extension, University of Ghana also took the participants through vegetable gardening.

A Director from GES, Ms Helena Mends-Kittoe, in a dialogue with the teachers, called on them to ensure that they did not teach the children too many lessons at a time, saying that they should be mindful of the method they use in their teachings. She also called on them to ensure that their lessons were child focused by allowing the children to do most of the talking.

The Agona East District Director of Education, Mr Samuel Arhin, in a welcoming address, commended Nestlé Ghana for its support to the district through the healthy kids programme which has been running since 2011.

He said eating balanced diet, taking personal hygiene and sanitation seriously, physical education, taking in enough water daily and gardening as a form of physical exercise, may result in healthy growth of the individual.

The Corporate Communications and Public Affairs Manager of Nestlé Ghana, Mr Aaron Fenu, said following the success of the programme in the Agona East District, which was one of two pilot projects under the programme, the initiative had been extended to the Northern, Ashanti and Eastern regions.

He said the programme had helped to build the nutritional knowledge of many pupils and teachers in the implementing districts and explained that this year the programme was also introducing the vegetable gardening in the participating schools after a successful pilot in Duabone Catholic Basic. An award scheme would also be introduced soon for the programme.

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