Zangu (NR), Sept 17, GNA- Three schools in the West Mamprusi District of the Northern Region would get free lunch under a three-year private pilot school-feeding programme.

A Philanthropist, Reverend Father Frans Meddens, a Catholic Priest based in Holland and his friends are sponsoring the programme of a package of locally grown food for the pupils of the schools. Under the programme, which started last year the school would receive food items such as maize, groundnuts, soya bean, fish and cooking oil.

Mr. Franz Josef Zemp of the Gbilugu ecological farm near Walewale who is overseeing the programme, said feasibility studies done in the communities earlier, revealed that parents were ready to participate in the programme by doing the cooking and serving as well as storing the food items.

Mr Zemp said this at the weekend when he visited the Zangu Primary School also near Walewale.

He said the teachers gave their word to guide the pupils to start backyard gardens in the schools to grow organic vegetables for their consumption with the assistance of two organic farmers who would provide technical advise.

Mr. Zemp said in order to make the programme, more community-oriented, funds instead of food items would be given to the communities in future to purchase the food items from their localities for the schools.

Since the past six weeks, the three primary schools namely Zangu, Mishio, and Bomasa had received a total of 1,280kg of rice, 1,600kg of maize and 165kg of Beans.

Also made available to the schools over the same period were 165kg of soya beans, 160kg of groundnuts and 130 litres of cooking oil. The head teachers and some community elders, who received the items, thanked the donors and said it would help keep the children well fed and in school, especially with the poor harvest this year due to the floods.

The teachers said school enrolment was increasing and they expect that every child of school-going age in the communities would enroll this academic year.

The pupils had no soft drink and biscuits for their first day at school like their counterparts in the towns and cities, but they had plates of rice and fish stew for lunch, which they relished.