Professionals from 10 countries will exchange experiences on food and nutrition education for three days
Paulo Beraldo
Panama City, September 25, 2023 – Panama is hosting an international delegation of nutritionists, cooks, and multidisciplinary professionals from Latin American countries from September 25 to 27. This initiative is a collaboration between the Brazil-FAO International Cooperation Programme and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), aimed at strengthening school feeding programmes through the exchange of best practices and experiences in food and nutritional education (FNE).
The international mission will include government technicians and FAO officials from Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Peru, and Venezuela, in addition to participants from Panama and Brazil. Professionals from Brazil’s National Fund for Educational Development (FNDE/MEC) and the Brazilian Cooperation Agency of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (ABC/MRE) will also be present.
From Brazil, the winning cooks of the reality show ‘Merendeiras do Brasil’, created by FNDE to highlight the importance of these professionals for the implementation of the school feeding policy, will also participate. The competition brought together 15 cooks, 3 from each region of Brazil, as well as 5 nutritionists. The finalist cooks and the technical responsible nutritionists who accompanied them will receive this trip to Panama as a prize.
This mission marks the final stage of the “Teacher Training to Strengthen the School Feeding Programme” activity, carried out under the project Consolidation of School Feeding Programmes in Latin America and the Caribbean, within the framework of the Brazil-FAO International Cooperation Programme.
The initiative to strengthen teachers was developed in collaboration with the governments of the 10 countries, which also participate in the Sustainable School Feeding Network (RAES). The goal of the training was to enhance the capacities and equip teachers at the national level in these countries, with a focus on planning and implementing projects and actions related to food and nutritional education and linked to school feeding programmes.
This action is in response to the countries’ demands to enhance the capacities of technicians and teachers as multipliers and facilitators of this knowledge in their areas of intervention at the school level.
