Since the year, 1945 the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations has been celebrating World Food Day annually on October 16.
The commemoration aims to raise awareness of ongoing efforts to eliminate poverty, hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition globally.
Locally, a number of institutions observed World Food Day on Friday, October 14th 2022, under the theme “Leave No One Behind”.
One such institution was the New Grounds Primary School. To highlight the theme, the school held several activities at the school compound, including a food exhibition, a tree planting exercise and the transplanting of sweet corn on prepared plots in the school garden.
FAO representative and Coordinator of the Resilience School Feeding Program Laura Anthony-Browne spoke at the food exhibition and explained to the gathering, the nature of the relationship between the FAO and the New Grounds Primary School in ensuring food and nutrition security at the school. She did this in keeping with the World Food Day theme; she said she was delighted to be working with the New Grounds Primary School.
Mrs Anthony-Browne went on to explain how the New Grounds School Garden project originated. She revealed that When the program was established they were expecting twenty (20) students but ended up with close to sixty (60) at the New Grounds Primary School program.
Deputy Head Teacher of the New Grounds Primary School Mrs Cathy-Ann Ryan coordinated the tree planting exercise and expressed the benefits of planting the fruit trees on the compound in relation to the World Food Day theme “Leave No One Behind”. She was mindful that when you plant a tree, you are feeding the world.
Michael Dalton, Technical Specialist of the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture, oversaw the transplanting of the sweet corn by students of the school. He provided details of the several stakeholders responsible for the project. His pronouncement was that the project was a partnership of efforts involving a number of stakeholders.
Mr Dalton further gave a background of the institute’s involvement in the establishment of the New Grounds Primary School beginning In March of this year.
