Breakfast for Kindergarten schoolgirls in Pakistan

Last time we told you about expanding our free school breakfast program to 200 more children at Khatoon-e-Pakistan Government Girls School. This time we bring you updates exclusively from that school. In the last quarter, fruits and vegetables were added in different dishes served to students in an attempt to get students to develop healthier eating habits. Fresh fruit with natural yoghurt was a new item added to the breakfast for students and enjoyed by them. Whole wheat flour roti (flatbread) was prepared for 200 students thrice a week with spinach omelette, potato cutlets and stir-fried vegetables being rotated each day. Pulses were added to the menu since they are a rich source of protein and also familiar to the students being a staple at the dinner table at home for most of them.

The school management and the breakfast team re-assessed the breakfast menu for the winter with the goal being that we should ensure that every breakfast meal served to the students should be full of nutrition along with being healthy, delicious and efficient to prepare and serve. At the beginning of November, when the first of the cold Quetta winds arrived to Karachi, our team decided to add a new dish in the menu called Upma. It has a deep tradition in the sub-continent and is made from suji (semolina) and yogurt which are blended together with egg. Some vegetables were also added to make it more nutritional.

The students were not very keen on this new item on day one but as their teachers coached them about the nutritional value of an upma and encouraged them to give it a chnce, they started developing a taste for it and even demanding it for breakfast! This shows how much of an influence role models have on students and demonstrates that teachers and parents can play a positive role in shaping children's attitudes towards food preferences. This was an exciting realisation for the team and all of us are now even more motivated to explore variations of healthy meals to be added to the school meals program.

It has also been observed that students across the school have not been in a habit to eat a complete breakfast and thus skip what we think is the most important meal of the day. Teachers have to often force students to complete their
breakfast in the breakfast room. Keeping this in mind, the health teacher organized interactive morning assembly presentations conducted by students of multiple grades. Older students presented the importance of breakfast through entertaining skits. Younger students from primary classes talked about the nutritional values of different vegetables, pulses, fruits and dry fruits. The audience was also asked questions to ensure that they were actively listening and thinking about those benefits.

Please continue to support this program and share any ideas you may have for affordable, local and healthy menu options as we establish this program to fuel the brains that will shape Pakistan's future!

Author Name: Anam Palla, School Project Manager

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