Breakfast for Kindergarten schoolgirls in Pakistan

“The children come and tell me they miss coming to school and breakfast meals, and I miss feeding them.” Jamna.

You may remember Jamna from our last email about her, her daughter and the impact of the essential food packages we had distributed. A staple of the breakfast program at the Khatoon-e-Pakistan Government Girls School (KPS), Jamna has been here for three years. Since the recent lockdown, government regulations have been followed and only a few children come to school, sometimes, to get their work checked by the teachers. This is the limited interaction that Jamna gets with the children now.

Prior to the recent lockdown, in the month of October, the breakfast program was renewed with the 317 young children in the program from Khatoon-e-Pakistan Government Girls School (KPS) and SMB Fatima Jinnah Government Girls School (SMB). At this time in KPS, as per the Standard Operating Procedures, the children were allocated to multiple classrooms to ensure that they would not be in contact, whereas normally they would get together to enjoy their breakfast in the breakfast room.

The students were distributed, as the second graders used the breakfast room, the Kindergarten students and first graders remained in their own classrooms (nursery students who would normally also partake in the program were unable to this school year, as due to the pandemic, no new enrollments took place). To adapt to this major change, the menu was changed so that it could be delivered to classrooms more easily and to reduce the chances for spill over. Jamna had extra help and made the added effort needed to ensure that the children would all get their breakfasts at the same time.

She expressed her disappointment at not being able to feed the younger children as she normally had to feed the nursery and kindergarten students and had become very attached to them. “Children are willing to eat everything with me” Jamna remarked when asked if there was anything in particular the children did not like eating. Most children however, she found, liked egg and chappati as well as alloo ka paratha and fruit chaat but were not as keen on channa chaat. As winter approached in October, the breakfast menu replaced fruit chaat with a helping of mashed potatoes.

“I’ve been here for more than 10 years and these children feel like my own now that mine have grown up.” Abida.

A huge part of the breakfast program in SMB Fatima Jinnah Girls School is Abida. Here, the breakfast program in October, catered to around 130 students from the KG2 grade level. Ordinarily this program would include children enrolled in the KG1 classes however due to the onset of the pandemic, enrollment has been suspended.

Prior to the pandemic, two to three sections of the classes would attend the breakfast room at a time for their breakfast meals, in October however, half of the children came on alternative days so there were fewer children on a given day and two were seated per table. Additionally, as Abida noted, cleanliness and distancing became a major concern, as the children remained in their classrooms for their meals, the teachers ensured that the classroom remained clean and Abida, along with Rubina (another member of the kitchen caretaking staff) cleaned the utensils to maintain COVID 19 prevention.

Although Abida had her own apprehensions about the risk of exposure her work posed, she maintained that children were innocent and fragile – they needed care and direction, it was necessary to be present for them and show them the importance of handwashing and masks. She also noted the importance of the breakfast program and the enthusiasm the children had to come back to school.

Since our schools closed after the outbreak of COVID19 in March, the 500 students from Kindergarten through the second grade to whom we served breakfast every morning in school had been missing out on their daily dose of essential and healthy nutrition. In our last email, we updated you about distributing essential food items to the families of these students during the school closure and citywide lockdowns. Today, we would like to share a bit about the impact of this distribution. We were able to ensure that student families who had suffered the most economically due to illness or loss of livelihood could continue to support the nutrition of not only our students but their entire family without a worry. After the distribution, we received an overwhelming response from the community with many parents reaching out with messages of gratitutde and appreciation. One such family was that of 5-year-old Aliya, a student of KG-2 at SMB Fatima Jinnah Government School. Soon after the pandemic hit Karachi, Aliya's father suffered from an attack of paralysis, had to be hospitalized and was unable to continue his day job to provide for their family. Aliya was one of the many Early Years students whose families received a Care Pack with food and hygiene essentials meant to last a month. Several weeks later, our KG teacher Uzma received a call from Aliya's family who expressed their deep gratitude as they shared how the Care Pack sent by the school supported them in tiding things over till her father recovered.

Now, as we gear up for schools to reopen, our breakfast staff looks forward to welcoming the little ones again and once again establishing healthy eating habits, albeit in a drastically changed environment. Jamna is one of the breakfast chefs at Khatoon-e-Pakistan Government Girls School. On a typical day at school, Jamna prepares healthy meal options (such as the student favourite porridge with seasonal fruits!), serves it to the students and maintains the cleanliness of the Breakfast room. She is an integral part of the program and provides valuable input as new meals are added to the breakfast menu. For example, when a seasonal vegetable soup was introduced at Khatoon-e-Pakistan School, Jamna tested the recipe to estimate the amount of time it would take to prepare which eventually helped in deciding the days of the week it would be served on, and also tweaked the recipe according to the student's tastes.

Jamna herself has also learned the importance of cutting out processed foods and sugar from the diet of young children. She shares that she initially found it strange when smoothies, oatmeal and salads were introduced in the menu without any added sugar. Over the years, she learned not only that children's tastes can be shaped to develop healthy eating habits at an early age but also why it was important to do so. When her own daughter Suhana - a flourishing kindergartener at the same school - started bringing home lessons of the importance of good nutrition for a developing mind and body, Jamna was grateful that she already knew so many natural, healthy and additive-free recipes! She now not only prepares these healthy recipes at home but encourages her family and her neighbours to give them a try too for their own children.

Jamna and the rest of the all-female staff of the breakfast team have really been missing the eager happy faces they would serve every morning and are excited to have them back soon. We are currently working on a plan for safe school re-opening to ensure that the risk of exposure and transfer of the novel coronavirus is minimized. To this end, the breakfast staff will be trained on important Standard Operating Procedures to be followed in the Breakfast Room such as ensuring safe distance between students and proper ventilation. Preventing malnutrition and increasing the learning capacity of our government school students is a goal which has become even more important in the post-pandemic world. We hope to have your support as we gear up for this new normal - please donate generously to continue providing local, seasonal, healthy and additive-free breakfast. 

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