NGO supplying LP students with breakfast

By our Staff Reporter

GUWAHATI, Oct 4: Breakfast is considered to be the most important meal of the day. Children who do not have a good breakfast in the morning are less attentive in school, less inclined to do well and suffer from fatigue. A city-based social organization has launched an initiative to provide breakfast for children at government schools in Guwahati.

The programme, ‘Breakfast for All’ is being undertaken on an experimental basis by Priyobondhu, an NGO. It has first started the programme at Kailashpur LP School in the Kahilipara locality in the city.

Speaking to The Sentinel on Wednesday, founder of Priyobondhu Arrchie Borthakur said, “It was my dream to work for poor children who come to school without breakfast, the most important meal of the day. The planning of this breakfast event was last year and we first started this on August 29 this year. Kailashpur LP School has 157 students, out of which 100 students come to the school daily.”

The prime objective of the programme is to eradicate child hunger and breakfast skipping by providing a healthy breakfast daily consisting of a variety of foods, especially high-fibre and nutrient-rich whole grains, fruits, and dairy products.

“A poor family faces hunger because they don’t have money to buy enough food. They buy cheap food instead of healthy ones. As a result, the children from such families face development impairments. We call this project as a survival programme,” said Arrchie Borthakur.

A nutritionist has also been assigned to the project as a consultant. And as per the chart guide by the nutritionist the food is given for the children.  The breakfast will consist of high-fibre and nutrient-rich whole grains, fruits and dairy products.

Borthakur also shared that in future if they arranged more funds they would go for more schools and as of now they selected only one school permanently. 

“In this (Kailashpur LP School) students of all faiths come and as per the teachers’ statement the attendance of students has been higher than before after the start of the breakfast programme. And we have appointed a person who carries the breakfast early in the morning for the students by a bicycle as the communication problem is very bad as we cannot use car to go atop the hill where the school is located. We also have a body check-up machine so that we can check the students’ health,” said Borthakur.

Borthakur said, “We provide fresh bread, butter, cornflakes, milk, horlicks jalpan, ba, egg and a few others. We never buy ba from the market. We buy them directly from farmers’ houses so that no medicine is applied there. In future if get any help to increase our fund we will definitely increase our schools.”

Top Headlines

No stories found.
Sentinel Assam
www.sentinelassam.com