April 19th 2011 - April 19th 2011 - This is an election year. At some moment we will have a new Administration. No one knows which of our two political parties will come out on top and form that new Administration. Naturally, whichever one you listen to will tell you that there is little doubt their party will have an easy victory. However that may resolve, this is the time when this voter, and perhaps many others want to know what will happen to the School Meals Programme, the Nevis Food Revolution and the Nevis Health Revolution under a new Administration.
There is under this Administration a Public Private Initiative in respect of the School Meals Programme (the SMP). The Public has allowed the Private to go into the schools to see what exists, has agreed that the Private should supply equipment for St. Thomas, St. Johns and the Charlestown Primary, set up a purchasing scheme, and devise new menus. So far so good. After resisting the idea, Public appointed a Director of School Meals, and most important, allotted the funds for the building of the new kitchen and cafeteria at Charlestown. That was a brave decision. It was also courageous to allow the Private to design the kitchen, for the Public will get the blame if it goes wrong.
However, if we are to have a successful Public Private Initiative, there has to be initiative and commitment to common goals from both sides, and co-ordination. At present the initiative comes from the Private, and the co-ordination does not come from the Public. The Administration should define exactly what it expects its Director of School Meals to accomplish and monitor her performance giving guidance and support where required. Broadly the function of the Director must be to ensure that the schools produce nutritious palatable meals and that as many children as possible join the programme and consume the meals, but she should not be left to work this magic entirely on her own.
The SMP is the Ministry of Education’s responsibility. Somewhere in that Ministry, and not just in the notebooks of the Director, there should be records showing the uptake of meals in each school, reflections on how to improve uptake and quality, statements about children sent to school with inadequate lunch packs, and plans to educate children about food.
The SMP is not just the building and equipping of a school kitchen. The SMP is the first stage in a food revolution. That revolution is required if Nevis is to break out of its present fast food track to all the non-communicable diseases. If this does not happen then present and future generations are stuck with an ever increasing incidence of diabetes, amputations, obesity, cancers, high blood pressure etc.
I wrote to the Ministry in January, saying that if I was to use the Consent Order money owed to me by Government, for the purchase of kitchen equipment, I did have to have it. Over the past three months I understand that payments have been made to my lawyers. Remaining outstanding, as at this moment, is the money due for their costs. Only when this has been paid shall I be in a position to sign a contract for provision of the equipment. I made other comments:
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Amendments need to be made to the delivery area at the Charlestown School kitchen. I explained this
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I said that we would provide the kitchen equipment but asked the Administration to provide plates, cups, cutlery etc
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Kitchen equipment maintenance was critical. The Administration has no experience of this. I suggested that Four Seasons should be able to make relevant personnel available for smooth running and repair on a regular basis
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Staff. Ordering for, organising, planning menus, preparing, cooking and distributing 3-400 lunches in a limited space of time requires a most competent and experienced executive chef plus deputy at the head. Such a person can only be obtained if paid at market rates.
‘Perhaps’, I said, everything is nicely under control’.
My hand delivered letter was not favoured with a reply or even an acknowledgement. This is not just a lack of common courtesy, it is a lack of common sense. Here am I, a leading figure in the SMP trying to obtain and raise money for an entire kitchen putting forward important points about it, and the Ministry can’t be bothered to reply. I want to be able to tell potential donors that there is a sensible plan to find appropriate staff, and that the equipment that their money (and mine) will provide will be properly used and maintained. If kitchens are not serviced and maintained then very soon you do not have a working kitchen.
In the United States, at the very top level an anti-obesity campaign is being waged by Michelle Obama and her team. It is very visible. TV, Internet, everywhere. I have not seen any school meals publicity campaign in Nevis, led from the top. Why not? I except the admirable Shirley Wilkes. She is really trying..
For the next few weeks at 8.00 – 9.00 pm on Tuesdays you can watch on ABC TV Channel 21 a reality TV series called ‘Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution’ Jamie is a famous British chef trying via television to wake up America – in this programme Los Angeles – to the muck given as lunches to school children. The series promises well. Jamie is banned by the Schools Board of LA from entering any school. He is not going to accept that ban. If you can put up with the commercials it will be fun and fascinating. Ask yourself how relevant it is to what goes on in Nevis. Miss out the first part of ‘Let’s Talk’, but call in to them during their second hour and discuss it.
This Administration has its heart in the right place in respect of the SMP, but if its members were to repeat ‘Nutrition Matters’ every time they mentioned ‘Performance matters’ they might think more constructively how to make the programme work, and what they wanted it to achieve. It cannot be ‘build, take the credit and forget’. To bring about a better nourished population there has to be a structured plan, with a budget, made into a Minister’s priority responsibility.
What about those who claim to understand the slogan ‘People matter more’? Let us hear them say, ‘Nutrition matters most’.
I remember Vance Amory when Premier speaking at the Agricultural Fair telling people to eat local, not to be afraid of Nevis beef, it was grass fed and good for you. He ate it himself. This was the right thing to say, but the speech did not translate into action to improve school meals. We know he has the words, but does he have the heart or the inclination? Voters need to know what his party in government would do with the SMP. It is to be hoped that the CCM manifesto will contain a well worked out plan to maintain and improve the SMP, to bring in cooking lessons, (as the British have just done) in whichever schools have a kitchen. As American Food writer Michael Pollan says, ‘The best way to take control of your meals is to cook whenever you can. As soon as you start cooking you begin to learn about ingredients, care about their quality and develop your sense of taste. You’ll find that fast food becomes boring in comparison – more of the same salty fatty and sugary taste in every microwave pizza’.
And what about the deputy, Mark Brantley? Does he have any interest in the SMP and a campaign to persuade Nevisians to eat healthily? He tells us that the Windsong Foundation for which he claims to be sole agent in Nevis has US$1 million for the children of Nevis. He has made no effort to contact myself or Hastings Daniel to see if the Windsong Foundation could contribute to the SMP through the bank account we have set up at the Bank of Nevis called ‘School Lunches’.
If the Foundation does not wish to pay in to an account controlled by us and Elquemedo Willett perhaps it could pay directly for equipment from one of the US largest and most reputable suppliers. We have their quote for what is needed. If Brantley organised this he might gain credit with the voters and show that he and the CCM did have an interest in the SMP and the children of Nevis.
Medical statisticians in the US calculate that 1 in 3 Americans born in 2000 will have diabetes in their lifetime. This where we are going. The SMP is the first major battleground where we can attempt to reverse this fate, if we get it right and follow through on it. Much thought, commitment, money and an action plan is imperative.
The Good Book commands:
‘Be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only…
If a brother or sister be naked and in lack of daily food,
And one of you say unto them, Go in peace, be warmed and filled; and yet ye give them not the things needful to the body, what does it profit?’
This passage tells us clearly that if all we do is to make speeches we are hypocrites.
As Winston Churchill sometimes notes on wartime papers, ‘Action this day!’
So, let the Parties demonstrate to us what they are going to do to fulfil their new, agreed, political mission, ‘Nutrition Matters Most’
Syndicated Columnist
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