FG currently feeds 490,874 pupils, employs 5,267 cooks in Jigawa ― Minister

No fewer than 490,874 pupils in 27 Local Government Councils of Jigawa State are currently benefiting from the National Home Grown School Feeding Programme (NHGSFP) being implemented by Federal Government.

Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Sadiya Umar Farouq disclosed this during the flag-off of distribution of food and non-food items to the victims of the 2020 flood disaster in 16 States.

The Minister, who expressed delight on the successes recorded so far, disclosed that the National Home Grown School Feeding Programme was aimed at boosting school enrollment, child nutrition and local economic activities across thousands of communities in the country.

“We are here today to hand overfeeding utensils to the Jigawa State Government for the use of the benefitting pupils of the National Home-Grown School Feeding Program. This is in addition to the over 400,000 feeding utensils the Federal Government provided to the Jigawa State School Feeding Program in 2018.

“As we may all know the NHGSFP is one of the 4-key interventions of the Federal Government under the National Social Investment Program which seeks to boost school enrollment, child nutrition and local economic activities across thousands of communities in the country.

“The program at its core is designed to address poverty in all forms and is a collaboration between the Federal Government and States where the Federal Government is responsible for the release of funds, guidelines, policies and monitoring, while the state carries out the day-to-day implementation including procurement of food items, selection of cooks and vendors who prepare, cook and serve the meals for the pupils.

“The benefits of this program and its impact on the lives and livelihood of individuals, groups and communities is clear, evident and undeniable. While addressing cross-cutting issues of hunger, malnutrition and poverty, we have thus far recorded over 9 million pupils on the program being fed by over 100,000 Cooks across the nation.

“In Jigawa State alone, feeding is taking place in 2,180 primary schools, involving 490,874 pupils, 5,267 cooks in 27 LGA across the state.

“In 2019, when the Ministry was created, we set out to strengthen the Program with a view to make it sustainable and institutionalized into the structure of Government’s social protection mechanism. Immediately we came on board, we identified the strategic areas in the program that needed to be reviewed to accommodate realities. Some key areas identified include: improving meal quality, capacity development of all actors in the value chain, building strategic partnerships to achieve sustainability and many other areas.”

The Minister also assured that the Ministry has commenced the deployment of interventions within the National Home Grown School Feeding Program that will “address the identified gaps including a nationwide enumeration exercise across the nation with the objective of verifying the existing data, upgrading the quality of data and updating our records to accommodate the scaling up of the program with an additional 5 million beneficiaries ad directed by President Muhammadu Buhari.

“Additionally an operational review is underway fully supported by experts and Technical partners to ensure that this program succeeds in its objectives and capitalizes on gains and benefits such as women empowerment, supporting the education of the girl child, creating employment and empowering intergovernmental collaboration.

“Furthermore, we have deployed an extensive, layered end supported monitoring system that will give us reel time information of how the program is being implemented and the areas that need urgent intervention and correction.

“Thus, this intervention today is only one out of the several strategic plans of our Ministry that seeks to ensure that the target pupils have the best experience of hygiene and safety during their consumption of these free meals,” she noted.

In his remarks, Governor Muhammad Abubakar who applauded the initiative solicited more support the vulnerable groups.

“I appreciate the honourable Minister for her hard work and courage, we say a very big thank you to Mr President, we the Jigawa people will never forget all these efforts of Mr President for the market, TradersMoni, N-Power and school feeding programme it is very big support from Jigawa state people.

“We cannot thank Mr President enough and Minister for what they have been doing to us but we also ask for more because we know Baba and the Minister have that act of supporting the poor and vulnerable.

“As you are aware, we are among the poor in the racking of the state but we have been able to move up a little bit but we need a lot of support.

“Mr President has done greatly in agriculture, he has supported our farmers, he has supported our education very well through the Minister of Water Resources but your own is unique because it touches the house, heart and lives of the poor and vulnerable of the local communities. We thank and open our eyes and heart to ensure the program brought has been dealt with correctly,” he said.

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President Muhammadu Buhari Friday at State House Abuja urged the MTN Group to make the available top-of-the-range service to its Nigerian subscribers…  FG currently feeds 490,874 pupils, employs 5,267 cooks in Jigawa FG currently feeds 490,874 pupils, employs 5,267 cooks in Jigawa  FG currently feeds 490,874 pupils, employs 5,267 cooks in Jigawa FG currently feeds 490,874 pupils, employs 5,267 cooks in JigawaFG currently feeds 490,874 pupils, employs 5,267 cooks in Jigawa.