In my last article I said ‘The best way to participate in our community is to play a role in the Nevis Food Revolution, the first stage of which is the School Meals Programme. This needs money, ideas, talent and time.’ A number of persons have already been most generous, in particular in launching the programme at the Elizabeth Pemberton Primary School. We now have to take the next big step forward to include the Charlestown Primary.
You will understand the significance of this article if you have read, or do read, ‘The History of Health’ which appeared some weeks ago on SKN Vibes Commentary and can be found there now. Broadly it described medical historical research in which the authors concluded that the good health of the mid-Victorians was due entirely to their superior diet. The degenerative diseases from which we die ran at less than ten per cent of today’s rate. Cancer was described as a rare disease. It is obviously possible for this island to reverse today’s trend if appropriate action is taken.
I wrote in 2004 that I would vote for whichever party instituted a school meals programme. I was not aware that there was one then in being. The NRP 2006 manifesto pledged that it would extend the programme to all Primary Schools.
The CCM manifesto was silent about this. Over the last few years there has been a public private initiative to improve and extend the programme. The private part has been spearheaded by myself, Hastings Daniel and Mark Roberts.
Our survey of the situation in 2006/7 showed that four out of the seven state Primary schools offered lunches. Week by week the same not very nutritionally satisfactory meals were produced. We cannot blame the schools. They were given limited guidance from the Ministry which reflected the then CCM Government’s lack of interest. We were able, with the schools’ enthusiasm to improve the quality, to assist them with some varied menus repeating each month rather than each week, and to set up purchasing arrangements for them with the Abattoir, the Fisheries and the Agricultural Department’s Marketing Department.
We were also able, with voluntary contributions to provide and install commercial grade equipment for two schools. There are now five in the programme. A kitchen and cafeteria is under construction at the Charlestown Primary School. We have yet to purchase the necessary equipment. It is my hope that this kitchen will be fully functional for the September term. I mentioned that the school meals programme, still limited in scope, is the first stage of the Nevis Food Revolution. The point of this is to effect a Public Health Revolution.
We have a Ministry of Health. The Minister talks about prevention of the non communicable diseases (NCD’s) but in reality the Ministry is one of ill health, which concentrates, through the clinics and the hospital upon the NCD’s (and other matters) after they have arisen. Today we are being urged to take mammograms, pap smears, have prostate examinations and colonoscopies and goodness knows what so that the diseases of disintegration which have now become so prevalent may be ‘caught early’. No doubt that these steps can be beneficial, but what we have to aim for are conditions in which these diagnostic techniques would scarcely be necessary. We need a Ministry of Good Health, whose priority would be to educate and persuade the people to cut out junk food and drink, and instead to cook from scratch local produce and take regular exercise. The Ministry’s priority would be a continuous unremitting campaign directed at individuals, children, the community cooks, teachers, all classes of person. It would be a national campaign to reclaim our future.
This Administration must be commended for its efforts to bring the Charlestown Primary into the lunch programme. But that is not an end in itself. A kitchen is just a room or series of rooms in a building. It is what comes out of it on a continuous basis that matters. We do not know who is to form the next Administration nor the succeeding ones. But those who decide and implement policy should understand that commercial kitchens are full of machinery requiring regular servicing, maintenance, spare parts, repair etc. If none of this is done, then after a while you do not have a functioning kitchen. There is a Government Repair Shop at Prospect for Government vehicles, agricultural machinery etc. which works well. The Administration has not previously had responsibility for a commercial kitchen, but it will have to set up a system to deal with it. Skilled and enthusiastic staff must be found. Training and refresher courses for all school cooks must be implemented. In England where they have just woken up to the fact that if their population is to be healthy it must cook its meals from scratch, cooking lessons for 11-14 year olds are now obligatory. We also should do this. Apparently Michael Perkins says that this kitchen is too big. The general rule is that chefs want more space rather than less. What we hope for from the Opposition is positive comments on the school meals programme. Let them give at least a little credit where it is due and tell us how they plan to improve and increase the scope of the programme. ‘The kitchen is too big’ is both wrong and discouraging.
Could we please see a reversal of Mark Brantley’s attitude to school provided meals! His web site manager for Nevis Politics.com, Mervin Hanley writes, ‘There are so many people, especially the younger ones, I hear every day chanting, ‘I want to be like Mark.’ Regardless of the literal truth of this, undoubtedly he has a considerable following who believe his message. There may therefore be many who when they hear him say things like, ‘What, Gaskell come to save us from starvation’ and ‘It is an insult to Nevisians to report that a child has been sent to school with a lunch of bread and nothing in between’, will form the impression that what some of us are trying to do to improve the situation is interfering and pointless, because there is no problem. It is not starvation that concerns us, it is modern day malnutrition.
Diabetics and amputations and kidney failures, heart attacks, cancers of all kinds, we know that the numbers are ever increasing. Experience tells us that junk food and drink are largely responsible. Last month a Nevisian was flown to Trinidad for removal of a kidney stone. Nevis had no specialised equipment.
St. Kitts could not help. The shocking fact was that the patient was only ten years old. The condition is said to be one of excruciating pain, worse than childbirth. In the USA, leading us in the general health decline, there is a hospital called ‘The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia Kidney Stone Center’. It is the first national paediatric centre devoted to treatment and management of children with kidney stone disease. In 2005 it had only ten cases. In 2010 five cases per week, or 260 for the year presented. The best prevention is a sensible diet and to drink plenty of water so that the minerals in urine stay dissolved.
This is the path we are on, because collectively we choose to be. If it is possible for our politicians to get together on the serious issue of crime, could they not also combine to forge common policy goals and action to prevent/decrease this unacknowledged national calamity?
We defeat crime when the community is totally committed. We vanquish non communicable disease also only when the community is knowledgeably and fully engaged.
We send out a clarion call to the business community, professionals, the churches and N.G.O.’s for funds, and voluntary support to advise and educate our children, to monitor the quality of the meals, and to contribute in kind to whichever is their local school. Parents you have the right to demand that schools serve nutritionally and palatably satisfactory meals. This is participatory democracy. See to it! All have to learn and be positive. Much can be done.
An account has been opened at the Bank of Nevis for receipt of contributions from anyone who wishes to play a part in stage one of the Nevis Food Revolution. Signatories are myself, Hastings Daniel and Elquemedo Willett. Cheques may be made out to ‘Nevis School Lunches’. Monies will be used for any purpose connected with provision of meals in schools, including purchasing of equipment, training of staff, and cooking lessons. For the avoidance of doubt:
1. The account will be audited, and
2. The monies will be used solely for the purposes for which they have been given, regardless of which political party forms the Nevis Island Administration.
Any monies sent to me at P.O. Box 481, Charlestown, Nevis, will be acknowledged.
