School se dar nahi lagta-mid day meal se dar lagta hein sahab! स्कूल से डर नही लगता-मिड दे मील से डर लगता हैसाहब!

I remember this statement came few months back when there was incident of mid-day meal accident in Bihar where in about 23 students lost their life! I read so many articles on it, so many committees formed for strengthening mid-day meal procedures and finally so many reports on mid-day meal incident! Indeed these things are important, but somewhere vital is ‘to actually work on solution for making mid-day meal healthy and systematic’

Caritas India in Bundelkhand region and in MP with some of its partner organization shared the Bihar mid-day meal accident and asked for ideas and suggestion to work on it, fortunately two partner organizations from Sagar (MVSS implementing HARIT PRAYAS project) and Indore (IDSSS implementing JEEVIKA project) took up this and started working on it with CBMOs ( Community Based & Managed Organizations-SHGs to sort-out such incidences of mid-day meals in schools and for the same through projects at both the places SHGs been taught on Mid-meal concept, importance of it and also technically trained on importance of food nutrition and food keeping!

On the other hand we also motivated SHGs to apply to get contract for operating Mid-day meal in village government schools and fortunately in both the districts 4 SHGs formed under Caritas India programmes received the contract for food preparation in school for Mid-day meals and would be starting from Oct 2013, but these all are common thing-whats going to be different with Caritas Intervention in Mid-day meal:

• Raw material ( vegetable and food grain ) would be purchased from farmers club and would be organic

• Mid-day meal must be examined every day by a committee before serving to school children

• Explanation of food menu by those who would cook food to school children once in a week

• Usage of bio-degradable materials for serving food-in the form of bio-degradable plates/bowls!

• Brief on materials used for making food would also be displayed.

Hope now students will not fear of mid day meal and will say ...school aur khane se payaer hein- स्कूल औरखाने से प्यार है! Contract of mid-day meal to SHG members would give them a good source to earn a better income on monthly basis (probably 9000-10000 per month)

For more on the caritas India initiative ( through caritas India partners and programmes) get in touch with "jeevika idss" , "Harit Prayas" haritprayassagarmp@gmail.com

By Caritas India team