Add eggs to school feeding programme-GNECS advocates

The National Coordinator of the Ghana National Egg Campaign Secretariat (GNECS), Comfort Acheampong, has reiterated calls for the addition of eggs into the school feeding programme.

She insisted that it was high time that the school feeding secretariat accepted proposals to pave way for the caterers of the school feeding programme to add eggs to the meals of the school children.

As far back as 2019, we had a lot of discussion with the secretariat as well as the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection on how to efficiently add eggs to the meals of the pupils without incurring additional cost,” she stated.

Speaking to BusinessweekGhana at a school activation event at Sowa Din Memorial Cluster of Schools in Accra on Wednesday June 9, 2021, Acheampong explained that, as a result of the meetings, the Gender Ministry gave the green light for a pilot to be carried out at the Western and Western North regions.

GNECS also trained a number of caterers on how to maximize the use of eggs as part of the pilot activities. The project whoever stalled because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

From the training, it was established by the dieticians that when 20 eggs are properly scrambled will be enough to meet the nutritional needs of 100 pupils,” Acheampong stressed.

This she said negates arguments that it was costly to add eggs to the feeding programmes.

A senior staff of the Adenta Municipal Education Directorate, Ebenezer Perry Ofori, speaking on behalf of the Education Director, welcome the call by the GNECS adding that “with the enormous benefits of egg, it is just ideal for the GSFS to buy into the suggestions.”

The purpose of the school activation event, as explained by Comfort Acheampong, is to intensify the awareness creation on the benefits of egg. “It was important to let children understand the benefits of eating eggs so they can make meaningful choices”.

She added that the education is also being done at the churches, lorry parks, markets across the country

Kwabena Kusi Public health specialist with the Ghana Health Service enumerate several benefits of eggs to the pupils of Sowa Din Memorial cluster of schools. He explained that egg is rich in proteins and has a lot of vitamins including vitamin A and D which are good for eyesight and bone development respectively.

Egg contain choline which help with brain development and this is particularly important for children and they must be encouraged to eat egg” He stressed.

Read also: WIPVaC donates eggs to Pantang Hospital

He mentioned that eating eggs also helps in hair growth and the improvement in blood circulation

Kusi explained that the cholesterol in egg is considered to be a good cholesterol. He therefore, he encouraged that people without any medical conditions could eat at least two eggs a day.

Head Teacher of Sowa Din 1JHS, Kelvin Addo-Sunu, expressed his excitement for the opportunity for his school to benefit from such opportunity.

Egg is an excellent food with lots vitamins and minerals and with our commitment to improving the health and education of every child, we will cease every opportunity to achieve this potential and this event is one of them.

The GNECS as part of the campaign presented over 4,000 eggs to be shared with the pupils of the school which has a little over 2000 students.

With this gesture, every child in this school will eat an egg to day”

Source: Kofi Ahovi