A two-hour boat ride on a warm breezy day takes us to Prey Kri Choeung Primary School, near the base of a rocky mountain in Prey Kri Tbong village in Cambodia’s Kampong Chhnang Province. There, Rath Khemra, a local Food for Education field monitor with the non-profit International Relief & Development (IRD), stops by to attend a local school support committee meeting. The schoolmaster, Hung Phalla, tells the group how delighted she is that USDA’s McGovern-Dole Food for Education program is contributing to significant improvements in her school. She notes the increased school attendance and enrollment rates of school-aged children and their teachers. “All of this has made for much better education in my school,” she says, adding that “the physical appearance of the students is healthier as well.”
IRD implements the USDA Food for Education program in 125 schools in Kampong Chhnang Province by providing healthy on-site meals and take-home rations. The meals consist of corn-soy blend and vitamin A- fortified soybean oil, which are donated under USDA’s McGovern-Dole International Food for Education and Child Nutrition Program, as well as salt, spices or palm sugar, and raisins or other fruit, which are procured locally. The dish is similar to the rice-based ba bor, a traditional Cambodian breakfast food. Take-home rations include USDA-donated beans and canned salmon. IRD also works with community volunteers to provide safe transportation to school for girls from remote and flood-prone villages in the province.
