NIA CHARLESTOWN NEVIS (January 19, 2017) — The School Meals Programme administered by the Department of Education on Nevis is being described as a well-managed one.

Mr. Kevin Barrett, Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Education on Nevis said that view was expressed by Dr. Isabella Granderson, a lecturer at the University of the West Indies St. Augustine’s Campus and consultant to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), when she met with him at his Marion Heights office on January 18, 2018.

“The meeting this morning was very fruitful…What came out of the meeting was how impressive and how well managed our school meals programme is…It became apparent to us that we are actually doing something that is very well organised and beneficial to our children.

“Dr. Granderson was impressed with our school meals programme being decentralised, our insistence on using local produce and also that the programmes around the island are basically self-sustainable,” he said.

Mr. Barrett used the opportunity to commend Ms. Earlene Maynard, Director of the School Meals Programme and Mr. Michael Henville, Executive Chef and Food and Nutrition Specialist attached to the School Meals Programme, for providing the necessary information to Dr. Granderson.

Mr. Barrett said Granderson was on Nevis to collect information which would form part of a Caribbean Community (CARICOM)-wide survey for the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the findings would be discussed at a meeting in Trinidad in August.

Before the meeting, Dr. Granderson spoke of the regional project which is designed to examine the status of the Caribbean Community’s school feeding programmes.

“All the data is being compiled which we will then analyse when we go back and after the analysis, a workshop will be planned to discuss the findings…

“You have stakeholders from all the countries coming together and then recommendations will be put forward towards best practice for school feeding within the region. That will be the overall outcome of the exercise,” she said.

Dr. Granderson is a part of a three-member team who visited St. Vincent and the Bahamas prior to their visit in St. Kitts and Nevis. Other with visits are planned for Dominica, Jamaica, Haiti, Tobago and Suriname.

Also present at the meeting on Nevis was Mr. Ian Chapman, Food and Agriculture Organisation National Correspondent on St. Kitts and Nevis.