August 11, 2023 – The virtual course “School Feeding: Strategy for a Healthy Life,” which trained over a hundred managers from Paraguay’s educational system, was concluded on Friday, August 11th, with the international seminar “Strengthening Coordinated Management to Ensure the Human Right to Adequate Nutrition.”

The event, organized by the Ministry of Education and Sciences (MEC) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), featured experts from Brazil, Ecuador, Nicaragua, and Paraguay, aiming to address the most pressing challenges in the field of school feeding and food and nutrition education (FNE).

During the seminar’s opening and the course’s closure, Vice Minister of Basic Education, Alcira Sosa, emphasized the training and ongoing actions. “We need to delve deeper into the debate on school feeding programmes (SFP), because they provide food security and nutrition for our students,” she stated.

She emphasized that the fact that over 100 officials and educators participated in this course allows for discussions to be generated and taken to other stakeholders because there is much lack of knowledge about how the SFP operates in Paraguay and how it is funded, among other fundamental aspects.

“This course was one more step in the series we have taken over the years with the Ministry of Education and Sciences to promote the right to adequate nutrition,” highlighted Agustín Zimmermann, the FAO Representative in Paraguay. “We are pleased to have contributed to strengthening Paraguay’s SFP through the capacities of its managers,” he added.

Najla Veloso, the Regional Coordinator of School Feeding for the Brazil-FAO International Cooperation, indicated the satisfaction of witnessing progress in Paraguay’s school feeding law and the regulatory process. “This topic is very important, broad-ranging, aligns with various SDGs, and impacts the health of every culture,” she expressed. “Speaking about the human right to adequate nutrition means we are transitioning from a social protection programme to a general and universal policy that reaches everyone with the highest possible quality, which demands other intersectoral actions,” she added.

The training was aimed at managers of the educational system from all departments of the country, as well as technical teams from public institutions related to school feeding and interested parties in general.

The course was carried out within the framework of the project “Consolidation of School Feeding Programmes in Latin America and the Caribbean,” implemented by the Brazilian Cooperation Agency of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (ABC/MRE), the National Fund for Education Development of the Ministry of Education (FNDE/MEC), and FAO.

Course Details:

The virtual course “School Feeding: Strategy for a Healthy Life” consisted of 4 modules, lasting 8 weeks with a total of 60 clock hours. The hours were distributed among synchronous classes (4 hours weekly), asynchronous tasks (2 hours per week), an International Webinar in virtual mode (3 hours), and a final project (8 hours).