This week, the education sector will be marking major milestones and reflecting on pressing challenges and issues confronting them on a day-to-day basis, but the population that needs attention most is that population from preschool to standard VI, those important first two phases of formal education that all too often separate children by their family’s ability to afford education, leaving many fallen by the wayside for reasons beyond their control.
We have to concede that there are many commendable programs aimed at helping financially challenged children and their families, to give some of them a chance to get a decent “book” education, even though their personal financial circumstances would deem it impossible. Likewise, there are still very many Belizeans around who scrape from their own shallow pockets to help children whose parents have a hard time meeting the expense of education. Kudos to them!
However, we are appalled that there continues to be a more pressing issue than tuition and the cost of books that demands urgent attention, yet it continues to be pushed on the back burner. It was recently brought to our attention that still too many children are going to the classroom with literally nothing on their stomachs – hungry as hell, and they are still expected to learn and behave sensibly?
There are children below the age of 5 who go to the preschools underfed, or fed on biscuits and honey buns instead of bread, ideal instead of milk – plain water in some cases – and still in other cases, carrying in their hands bellies writhing from excruciating pain.
These are the hard facts of life for too many children in numerous pockets of this so-called civilization, where children are expected to attend school and learn without their very basic needs being met. It is an atrocity that should not exist in a land so verdant as Belize.
Some schools are accused of taking donations granted to them to feed poor children and not doing so. Some parents stand accused of taking their children’s food money and buying for themselves alcohol, cigarettes and other unnecessary items. Some cooks stand accused of feeding children unbalanced meals – high on starch and fat, flavored with gravy from “neck and back”, even when programs are financed well enough to afford them something more palatable and wholesome.
While there will be much talk this week about all the great things that are being done within the education system – and we do concur that there are some things worthy of being celebrated – this week’s festivities would have been for naught if there isn’t a quick and effective solution put on the table to take care of this major problem that pervades almost every public school in Belize: HUNGER.
We hear talk of a National Height Census, which, officials say, will attempt to determine whether a child is malnourished based on the child’s height at a given age. What is the cost of this undertaking? Wouldn’t those funds have been better spent dealing with the problems we already know exist? And Belize is not so big that we need a census to tell us where to go. These very educators who will be asked to measure children and take their data know firsthand the ones that come into their classrooms with rumbling tummies, because undoubtedly, they often have to pinch pennies from their own pockets to help feed them out of their already meager salaries.
As a nation whose traditional pillar had always been agriculture, we cannot continue to ignore this very fundamental and far-reaching problem in schools today. Every school, whether private or public, needs a proper feeding program. A child has a right to be fed; it is not a privilege, and where parents fail, the wider community must ensure this fundamental need is met. It is as critical for them as the air we breathe.
Even though education is not free in Belize, all children whose parents don’t have the means to properly feed them should be beneficiaries of a program that will ensure they get sensible food to eat every day, free of cost, so that their bodies and minds will be well attuned, to realize their God-given potential.
The prisoners at Kolbe Foundation could be engaged in such a worthwhile program, which would no doubt help them to feel better about themselves. They can expand their existing agricultural projects to grow more food for these needy children, to raise chickens, sheep, and other domesticated animals to channel to a trustworthy organization to feed these children.
Furthermore, there are too many idle bodies walking the streets, turning into bums, toting guns. Why not engage these Belizeans as well? Help them, too, to turn their lives around. Inspire them to be a part of a revolution that would improve the health and wealth of Belize, and truly help build a future amid growing despair within homes and out in the streets. This is a better alternative for all of us.
Herein lies a tremendous opportunity to stop hunger in our schools, if we really mean business. Herein lies a golden opportunity to engage souls that have lost their own self-worth in a venture that would reap dividends for themselves, our children, and indeed, the wider community.
Food for thought! Feed our children! And do feed them well! God has blessed this land with so much, and there is really no excuse for any to go hungry. Food for thought!