The course emerged from a partnership between Brazil-FAO International Cooperation and FAO Campus
Paulo Beraldo
Brasília, Brazil, September 5, 2024 – The course in food and nutrition education (FNE) offered to professionals from four countries was highlighted as an innovative regional experience at the FAO Transforma Fair 2024, a platform designed to increase visibility and stimulate the management and production of knowledge and innovations in the region.
Implemented in 2019, the course included 167 professionals from El Salvador, Honduras, Peru, and the Dominican Republic. The initiative led to the study “Training and Practices in Food and Nutrition Education in School Feeding Programmes – Experiences from Four Countries,” conducted in 2023. The training focused on the design and implementation of concrete actions regarding FNE in schools.
The initiative was driven by the Brazilian Cooperation Agency (ABC), the National Fund for Educational Development (FNDE), and FAO, under the Brazil-FAO International Cooperation Program, in partnership with FAO Campus.
Miriam Oliveira, representing the project Regional Agenda for Sustainable School Feeding in Latin America and the Caribbean, emphasized the importance of the FAO Transforms Fair as a crucial space for regional knowledge exchange. During her presentation on the experience, she highlighted that training aimed at professionals from various government levels and other stakeholders involved in school feeding has strengthened the sustainability of these programmes based on the concepts addressed, particularly the human right to adequate school feeding.
Oliveira explained that the participants have become key agents in strengthening school feeding in their countries. “Through this and other trainings, a network of actors has been created that understands the importance of ensuring healthy and adequate school feeding for students in the region, beyond just providing food,” she commented. This network has facilitated significant changes, improving the school environment, diversifying menus, and promoting inter-institutional mechanisms with a multiplying effect on the educational community.
She added that, “while knowledge alone cannot transform reality, those who receive training are capable of changing not only their own reality but also their entire environment.”
Model for other courses
The course has also served as a model for the development of new training processes in various countries in recent years, adopting a more integrated and strategic approach that encompasses school feeding policies, health, education, agriculture, and social development. Miriam Oliveira highlighted as a key lesson the importance of involving government professionals in permanent positions, as well as teachers and other key actors from the educational community, to ensure effective follow-up of institutional actions.
Paola Barbieri, project analyst at ABC, highlighted the positive impacts of the course, such as its influence on improving the school food environment through awareness activities and the implementation of school gardens. In her talk, she also underscored the importance of FNE in raising awareness among students, as well as the multiplying effect of the training and the inspiration for other similar actions.
“The course has produced significant results for cooperation and has served as a reference for the Sustainable School Feeding Network (RAES) and the training of tutors in the region,” she stated. Barbieri mentioned that, in this work cycle, the Brazil-FAO International Cooperation on school feeding is focusing on consolidating a regional agenda based on RAES to strengthen school feeding programmes in the region.
Both the training and the study of its effects were implemented jointly with FAO Campus, the capacity development and knowledge management area of the FAO Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean, which maintains a platform of free courses in 4 languages and has been developing training in food and nutrition security for the region since 2008.
FAO Transforms Fair
In its third edition, the FAO Transforma Fair aims to highlight how FAO’s technical capacities complement the technical and financial capacities of cooperation partners, generating processes that are innovative in addressing and solving causes and problems related to food production, hunger, malnutrition, and poverty.
This is the fifth time a project from Brazil-FAO Cooperation on school feeding has been highlighted as an innovative action at FAO Transforms. In 2023, these included the RAES virtual platform (www.redraes.org), the podcast series “Getting to Know the Sustainable School,” and the training workshops in FNE for 10 countries in LAC. In 2022, the highlighted initiative was the Sustainable Schools methodology, created under this cooperation in partnership with the countries, already implemented in over 14 countries and reaching more than 23,000 educational centers.
