The event promoted by Venezuela within the framework of the Sustainable School Feeding Network counted with the participation of representatives from Brazil, El Salvador and the Dominican Republic
Paulo Beraldo
July 17, 2023 – The Government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, the FAO representation in Venezuela and the Sustainable School Feeding Network (RAES, by its Spanish acronym) organized, on July 13, an international forum to exchange successful experiences on school feeding policy in Latin America. The event was supported by the Brazil-FAO International Cooperation, through the project Consolidation of School Feeding Programmes in Latin America and the Caribbean.
The ‘1st Venezuelan Forum: exchange of experiences with Latin American countries that are members of the Sustainable School Feeding Network (RAES)’ brought professionals from Brazil, El Salvador, the Dominican Republic and Venezuela to discuss challenges and lessons learned from this policy. The discussions took into account the Sustainable Schools methodology, implemented in the region for over 10 years by the Brazil-FAO Cooperation and governments of several countries. The audience of the hybrid event was made up of key actors who implement the school feeding programme in Venezuela, such as the Ministry of Popular Power for Education and the National Institute of Nutrition.
RAES is a strategy promoted by the Government of Brazil to support LAC countries in the implementation and reformulation of their school feeding programmes, under the principle of the human right to adequate food. It is promoted by the Brazilian Cooperation Agency (ABC/MRE), the National Fund for Educational Development (FNDE/MEC) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), through the project Consolidation of Food Programmes School in LAC.
Pedro Díaz, Deputy Minister of Infrastructure and Logistics of Venezuela and President of the National School Feeding Corporation, opened the event by thanking for the opportunity to be part of RAES. He highlighted the support of Brazilian cooperation and the importance of these dialogues to promote the Venezuelan school feeding policy, reinforcing the commitment of the countries.
Nancy Ortuño, Deputy Minister of Secondary Education of Venezuela, added that it is important to be part of a network to dialogue and exchange knowledge on the subject. She reinforced that school feeding is a policy that boosts the country’s economy, through public purchases, so it is important to learn about experiences from other countries in the region. The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela joined the RAES with the support of FAO Venezuela and MPPE. Now, the nation is part of the network of 21 countries in the region.
A network for the development of school feeding
On behalf of ABC/MRE, Plinio Pereira said that the institution’s mission is to support partner countries in the challenges of their development processes acting in alliances. “We hope to integrate several key actors from the countries, developing one more space for dialogue in the region with the countries of this network through the exchange of successful experiences and lessons learned”.
Renata Mainenti, deputy general coordinator of the National School Feeding Programme in Brazil, executed by the FNDE/MEC, presented the history of this policy that has almost seven decades in Brazil. She said that intersectionality is one of the strengths of the programme and highlighted the articulation with different institutions. “This experience supports us in accompanying the construction of the school feeding mechanisms in other countries. We also learn a lot in these cooperation spaces and with the experiences of neighboring countries. It is up to us to use this policy with all the transformation potential it has”.
Representing FAO in Venezuela, Alexis Bonte mentioned the institution’s alliances to strengthen the school feeding policy, as a joint project with the Ministry of Education and with support from the European Union to strengthen local purchases for school feeding.
“In Venezuela, over the last 3 years, FAO and the Ministry of Education have focused on a socio-productive programme to facilitate access to healthy food, including eggs and vegetables to improve the intake of animal proteins and micronutrients. The productive aspect materializes through the alliance between the Local Associations of Producers and the Agricultural Technical Schools (ETA, by its Spanish acronym) to produce on the lands of the ETAs”, he said.
Bonte highlighted that this forum is also an appeal to the goodwill of the productive and educational sectors to contribute to the success of the agenda of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and, in particular, the right to healthy food and quality education. The directors of the Agricultural Technical Schools of Venezuela are committed to school feeding, working to expand it and reach more children and adolescents throughout the country. “For me, the Agricultural Technical School is my world, it’s my life”, concluded the Director of ETA Cimarrón Miguel Gerónimo Guacamaya, Carmen Bastidas.
International experiences
Leonardo Quiroa, manager of the school feeding programme at the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology of El Salvador, presented the characteristics of this policy in the country. He highlighted the scope of the programme, which reaches 5,130 educational centers in 14 secretariats and serves approximately 1 million students. He also spoke about the actions carried out to promote school health, the participation of the educational community and food and nutrition education (FNE) actions.
Ana Zabala, responsible for nutritional assessment at the National Institute for Student Well-Being of the Dominican Republic (INABIE), presented the experience of the Comprehensive Food and Nutrition Surveillance System for School Children – SISVANE. “It’s a system that measures the impact of school meals on students and helps determine the necessary changes”, indicating, for instance, students who are overweight or who need nutritional supplementation.
Najla Veloso, coordinator of the regional school feeding project of the Brazil-FAO Cooperation, presented the Sustainable Schools methodology in her lecture. She highlighted that schools are spaces for community convergence and that social and economic development is associated with educational inclusion. In the Sustainable School methodology, a “model” based on six components is implemented: inter-institutional and intersectoral articulation; social and community participation; adequate infrastructure; food and nutrition education with school gardens; adequate and healthy menus; and public purchases of food for family farming.
“This event was an important opportunity to create a space for dialogue between these professionals, actors from the countries in the region that make up the RAES Network, exchanging successful experiences and lessons learned”, she said.
