Community participation to support mid-day meal scheme

1. www.schoolofeducators.com Presented By: Deepshikha Singh and Fouzia Khursheed Ahmad Research Scholars National University of Educational Planning and Administration New Delhi Community participation to support mid-day meal scheme

2. Areas where community can provide support for Mid-Day Meal • Community mobilization/Sensitization of Community • Information Generation • Ensuring children’s attendance in schools • Infrastructure management • Procurement of food, cereals, and condiments • Cooking and serving • Convergence between ICDS and MDM www.schoolofeducators.com Community Participation in the Mid-Day Meal Programme

3. Posters, street plays, films etc for community sensitization and awareness • Addressing issues in Gram Sabha or Panchayat. • Community must understand that MDM is a means of social cohesion. • Community knows that MDM protects children from classroom hunger. • Awareness for importance of education through training of community leaders • Sharing of best practices through community interaction • Role play, meeting with experts. • Knowledge about nutrients in food-knowing nutritional value of food. • Awareness for health, diseases, and hygiene. • Involvement of PRIs for sensitizing community. • Social mobilization through media, pamphlets, documentaries, folk songs • Gender sensitization- meena munch, maa-betimela www.schoolofeducators.com Community’s role for sensitization/mobilization of community

4. Identifying parents who are not sending their children to schools especially girls • Making a out of school child’s profile through household survey. • Identifying parents who do not allow their children to take mid day meal because of caste factors. • Knowing why information is needed like knowing educational status of children, arrangements for MDM, requirements of children for education. • Socio-economic status of the families. • Asking community for what kind of support households can provide to support MDM • Knowing causes of malnutrition • Socialization of families • Menu preferences (Food profile as per the staple food of particular geographical area) • Understanding caste dynamics within community • Anaemic level of children or any other deficiency disorders/diseases • School health programmes • Knowing manpower requirement • Knowing level of community participation • School mapping • Resource mapping • Knowing parents occupation and income level in the house www.schoolofeducators.com Community’s role in gathering and generating information

5. Dimension of kitchen • Avoiding shortage of fuel and firewood • Water facilities and proper toilet facilities • Use of solar cooker to be encouraged for saving fuel • Community can provide land for kitchen shelf • Maintenance of kitchens and store rooms • Local people can design how their kitchen should be like. • Checking the leaking in kitchens • Philanthropic support can be taken for infrastructure management of MDM scheme. • Community must understand what the availability of infrastructure is. • Planning the location of kitchen • White washing and painting of kitchens and storage rooms • Creation of slabs or platforms for serving food to children www.schoolofeducators.com Community’s role for Infrastructure management

6. Source of procurement/storage of food grains- Food Corporation of India, Storage and retail shops-procurement by schools for MDM • Fair distribution of food grains in community at fair prices • Storage mechanism for procured food by schools-proper storage rooms and containers • Checking the freshness of the grains, cereals and vegetables • Vegetables to be purchased on daily basis • Transparency about procurement and availability of food grains to the community-rates to be displayed • Local knowledge should be employed for storing food grains • Register and record keeping (stock registers, cash registers and attendance registers) • Procurement of cooking devices and utensils • Name of the contributors should be displayed on the board in order to encourage support from community for food procurement www.schoolofeducators.com Community role in procurement of cereals, grains and condiments

7. Proper estimation of quantity of food to be cooked-this can be done in accordance of children present in school • There should be no shortage of cooked mid day meal-food should be self-sufficient for children • Experts should be consulted for knowing the best cooking practices and retaining nutrients in food • Community should be encouraged to provide some cooks or other workers as a volunteer reserved in case of absence of regular cooks. • Preparing menu for food • Providing non-veg food and kheer(Tithi-bhojan) • Children can decide about menu • Seating arrangements in MDM • Decisions to be taken to employ good cook- community women can play a major role • Shelf -life of food items must be checked-perishability should be checked • Ensuring nutritional value of the cooked food • Proper cooking mode and medium should be used-smokeless chulhas etc. • Cooking of seasonal foods (seasonal food can be easily procured from community) • Supervision of proper cooking and serving of food by the community people • Properly washed utensils, grains and vegetables for hygiene • Wastage should be minimum www.schoolofeducators.com Community role in cooking and serving of MDM

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