EUROPE/ITALY - No school meals during the pandemic: Millions of children at risk of hunger all over the world

Tuesday, 9 March 2021

SMA

Genoa (Agenzia Fides) - The protraction of the Coronavirus pandemic continues to hit the most vulnerable groups. According to a report published by the World Food Program (WFP), there are around 370 million children worldwide who are absent from school due to the pandemic and have thus lost the opportunity to have their only meal of the day.
"It is quite common that the children of many African countries where we are active as missionaries of the Society of Africa Missions do not have breakfast before going to school and can only eat something in the evening when their parents return from work", explains to Agenzia Fides Father Marco Prada, priest of the Society for African Missions (SMA)from Genoa.
"The school canteen that offers these children a meal often prevents them from dropping out of school", he emphasizes.
The missionary refers to the report, ‘Missing More Than a Classroom. The Impact of School Closures on Children's Nutrition’, by the World Food Program WFP in collaboration with UNICEF. "In recent years, great progress has been made to reduce the malnutrition of schoolchildren, but Covid-19 is canceling these results: according to the report, 24 million children in the Global South are at risk of dropping out of school if they do not reopen as soon as possible", while many countries in the Global South are reluctant to reopening for fear that they will become hotbeds of contagion",says the report.
"The future of millions of the world's poorest children is at stake", warns David Beasley, WFP Executive Director. We need to help governments to reopen schools safely and feed these children again". (MP/AP) (Agenzia Fides, 9/3/2021)


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