World Food Programme Fighting Hunger Worldwide

The Regional Humanitarian Coordinator for the Sahel, Robert Piper, has concluded a two-day visit to The Gambia; he met with government officials, NGO community and also visited schools. “School feeding is a fantastic programme on a big scale; it combines everything that is important; it’s the children, it’s food, it’s the nutrition and the community participation.” said Piper during his visit.

The Regional Humanitarian Coordinator for the Sahel, Robert Piper, visited schools in West Coast Region where he had the opportunity to see how school feeding is managed at community level - from storage to lunch breaks when children are served -- and also interacted with the children during their lunch break.

Members of the community participate in the school feeding programme. Mother's clubs, food management committees and parent-teacher associations all actively take part in the school meals programme making sure that every child eats at school.

Mr. Piper arrived at Sutusinjang Lower Basic school in time for lunch and joined the cooks serving the school children. In addition to the food provided by WFP, communities also supplement school meals with food that is produced locally.

Currently, over 100,000 school children are benefitting from WFP assisted school feeding programme in The Gambia.

While in The Gambia, the Regional Humanitarian Coordinator for the Sahel, who was accompanied by the WFP Country Director, Vitoria Ginja (on the far right) and the FAO Representative, Dr. Babagana Ahmadu, also met with the chairman of the Ndemban Lower Basic School, Demba Sanyang and school authorities who help cultivate a school garden that supplements children's daily meals.

The cooks, who are also mothers of school feeding beneficiaries, spend at least 8 hours at school to ensure that children eat fresh, nutritious meals every day.

The Regional Humanitarian Coordinator for the Sahel, Robert Piper, concluded a two-day visit to The Gambia with meetings with government officials, NGO community and also visited schools. During his visit, Mr. Piper met with the UN Country Team to get an overview of humanitarian interventions in The Gambia.

The visit of UN Regional Humanitarian Coordinator for the Sahel concluded with a press conference. Mr. Piper emphasized the crucial role of the media in educating the public and transmitting information, which is a great advocacy for the work of the humanitarian community.