The United Nations' World Food Programme (WFP) launched last month a school meals program intended to support the nutritional needs of Syrian and Lebanese primary students.
Dominik Heinrich, WFP Lebanon Country Director asserts that education is of utmost importance to give Syrian and Lebanese youths the necessary training for them to become productive members of the region in the future, a region that is currently experiencing instability and turmoil.
To support the important task of educating the youth, the WFP through its school meals program, ensures that the nutritional needs of these children are met. In addition, the free nutritious meals would give the parents of these children another incentive to send them to school regularly, added Heinrich.
This new school meals program is funded by the Italian Development Cooperation and allows the daily meals for 10,000 Lebanese and Syrian refugee children in 13 primary schools in Lebanon identified by UNICEF and UNHCR to be located in the most vulnerable communities. The meals to be given include locally-baked snacks, a piece of fruit and a carton of milk or juice.
In the last five years, Lebanon saw an influx of more than one million Syrian refugees fleeing their war-torn country. To assist these displaced Syrians, the WFP gives electronic food vouchers enabling 600,000 of the most vulnerable Syrian refugees to purchase their daily sustenance from local markets across Lebanon. WFP has spent around US$600 million since 2013 into Lebanon to pursue its mission of preventing hunger.
The World Food Programme (WFP) is the world's largest humanitarian agency delivering food and relief supplies to around 80 million people across 80 countries according to an article in The Guardian by Clar Ni Chonghaile. Every day, the WFP mobilizes 70 aircraft, 20 ships and 5,000 trucks to deliver the much-needed food supplies to remote communities worldwide.
It delivered assistance to various emergencies such as the Ebola-stricken West Africa, typhoon-ravaged Philippines, war-torn Syrian, South Sudan, Iraq and the Central African Republic. Aside from its WFP-stamped food sacks recognized worldwide, the WFP is also engaged in resilience-building activities like providing support and assistance to subsistence farmers as well as giving out cash or vouchers for people to be able to buy food.
