Final: PCI achieved and exceeded all project objectives. While PCI had planned to feed 120,000 children, they were able to feed almost 130,000 in 1476 schools. While 375 ecological stoves was the target, there were 491 built. Although not included in the project objectives, field supervisors worked with municipalities to conduct 27-community education and agricultural fairs throughout the country with local press and government involvement.

In addition to the USDA commodities, contributions from the community, municipalities, the Office of the First Lady of Bolivia and the private sector, helped the GFE program to succeed. Data collected from sample schools indicated a 5% increase in enrollment. PCI successfully negotiated with the Ministry of Education regarding the provision of teacher training and as a result PCI was able to train more than 4000, three times the 1400 teachers originally planned for. Under the extension PCI will only be able to feed 50,000 children through December 2003.

Midterm: School feeding for about 120,000 students began in April 2002. Interviews indicate that enrollment and attendance have increased, but conclusive data is not yet available. Nevertheless, it is apparent that the contributions of other organizations are critical to this program’s success. Project Concern International’s (PCI) monetization budget for the Bolivia project is approximately $1,770,000; the estimated value of counterpart contributions, both in-kind and cash, is $1,340,000. PCI/Bolivia’s counterpart contributions address sustainability issues (by increasing municipal cash contributions, among other things) and contribute to improving the quality of education. Also, PCI/Bolivia is using this project as a model to work toward community development through the school. The program is scheduled to continue through December 2002, with an extension through December 2003.

Seven out of 10 Bolivians live in poverty, and 30% of those (around 2.2 million) live in extreme poverty. Poverty is most severe in the rural areas, where 57% of the population lives in extreme poverty, without access to a minimum diet.

An estimated 37% of the population is illiterate. Four years of education is average, and in rural areas most people have received less than three years of schooling. Of the total illiterate population, 70% live in rural areas and 68% are women. Only 1.4% of male students and 0.7% of female students finish secondary school. Repetition rates are high, with students who continue typically taking 12.8 years to complete six years of primary education. The World Bank estimates the cost of repetition at the primary level to be $30 million per year.

Children’s access to formal education is limited by the geographic dispersion of schools and other factors. Many children must walk up to two hours, often without breakfast, to reach school.

Final: For the extension, in January and February 2003 PCI received a total of 2210 metric tons of commodities, as listed below. The wheat was monetized to fund program implementation and the remainder distributed to schools for

direct feeding.

Midterm: Almost 9,000 metric tons of wheat, non-fat dry milk, corn, oil, and corn-soy blend were delivered between December 2001 and March 2002. The commodities support the program by providing food for direct feeding in the schools. They also support the program administratively and logistically by providing funds through monetization.

Final Implementation Status: All project objectives have been met or exceeded. In school year 2002, almost 130,000 children were fed in 1476 schools. While 375 ecological stoves were to be built, 491 were. PCI intended on training about 1400 teachers and was able to train about 4000. Although not included in the project objectives field supervisors worked with municipalities to conduct 27-community education and agricultural fairs throughout the country with local press and government involvement.

Sustainability: Engaging the government, private voluntary organizations, municipal officials and U.S. embassy support is critical to program sustainability. In country events on sustainability should be conducted. To ensure the obvious linkages are encouraged, the conferences should include officials from the ministries of Health, Education and Agriculture and feeding organizations’ staff. In country conferences are an excellent opportunity to network and share ideas and accomplishments. It increases the visibility of the program and fosters a cooperative spirit between the government and PVO community.

Midterm Objectives and Implementation Status: Using the school-feeding program as a point of entry into the community, PCI has integrated complementary health, nutrition, agriculture, and teacher training programs in its education initiative. The objectives of the project as outlined in the agreement and the implementation status of each follow.

Sustainability: Local support for a project has been identified as an essential part of program sustainability. PCI has built this project around local support and counterpart contributions: 1) The municipal counterpart has been increased to ensure proper planning for the purchase of local products when this project ends; 2) Parents contribute financially (cooking gas and transportation of commodities) and donate food from their own harvest; 3) Implementation of school gardens will produce vegetables that will be used in the school breakfast.

Some municipalities are now financially able to respond by themselves to the huge demand for school breakfasts. By increasing the required counterpart every year for the past five years, PCI has developed a mechanism by which the municipality responds to a clear demand by the constituents.

Final: See evaluation methodology in Appendix 1.

Midterm: Both the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and PCI are carrying out monitoring and evaluation activities. The USDA local monitor started site visits and data collection in mid-May. Focus groups and interviews have been conducted at some of the sample schools. Enrollment data for the baseline year and the new school year will soon be available.

Attendance data will be collected for the low attendance months of May and June and the high attendance months of September and October. May and June attendance data will be collected in the next round of visits in August, after the winter holidays.

The factors used to identify the 20 sample schools were:

Enrollment: Data collected from sample schools indicates over a 5% increase in enrollment

Attendance: Students attendance improved, steadily increasing through out the school year. Despite eight schools dropping out of the project, 3% more students were attending school by the end of the feeding year than were enrolled at the beginning.

Special emphasis on girls: We could not draw any conclusion regarding the impact of feeding on girls’ enrollment or attendance. Nevertheless, teacher training was developed to address gender equity and human rights.

Performance: Teachers and administrators report that students are learning more and able to concentrate better.

Feeding began in April 2002. In May, the local monitor was hired and began collecting data and conducting focus groups and interviews. PCI project data is not yet available to assess program impact formally, but preliminary findings from focus groups and interviews indicates an immediate and positive impact, as indicated in the following.

Enrollment: The Cochabamba PCI regional office recently noted that enrollment in one remote rural school nearly doubled from 18 students to 32 students since feeding began.

Attendance: One regional PCI office in Potosi reported preliminary data indicating a 10-% increase in attendance in May.

Special emphasis on girls: Data is not yet available. The World Food Program reports that while female access to primary school is slightly lower than male access, there is a significant drop in school enrollment by girls when they reach puberty. This program is not serving high school students where the female enrollment and attendance rates appear to be lagging behind male rates.

Final: PCI successfully negotiated with the Ministry of Education regarding the provision of teacher training. This negotiation allowed PCI to train more than three times the number of teachers originally planned in this project. The original goal was to conduct train-the-trainer type workshops with one teacher per school. With persistent collaboration with the Ministry of Education PCI was able to expand the scope of the training to reach almost 4000 teachers. As a result of this training, teachers are now using games, poems, dances, songs and dramatizations to teach their students about rights and responsibilities, the environment, health and nutrition. Students also use these strategies in the community fairs to teach neighbors and their parents about what they have learned.

Although not included in the project objectives, field supervisors worked with municipalities to conduct 27 community education and agricultural fairs with a vast number of participating schools. These fairs were held throughout the country with local press and local government involvement to promote the program and acknowledge USDA donations.

Midterm: Interviews with parents, teachers, and school administrators indicate that the feeding program is a unifying force in the community. It provides a tangible opportunity for parents to become acquainted with each other and work toward a common goal. Because of the regular presence of parents in the school, teachers are more accountable to the community. One parent stated, "Now we really have something important to do." Once they realize the impact they can have and their ability to organize and accomplish objectives, parents take on other school projects. Some parent-teacher associations (PTA’s) have initiated maintenance projects and developed school gardens and sports fields or courts.

Final: Program promotion and collaboration at the national and local level generates necessary support and increases government and public commitment to the program. Engaging the government, private voluntary organizations, municipal officials and leaders who support school feeding from international embassies is also critical to program sustainability.

In country events on sustainability should be conducted. To ensure the obvious linkages are encouraged, the conferences should include officials from the ministries of Health, Education and Agriculture and feeding organizations’ staff. In country conferences are an excellent opportunity to network and share ideas and accomplishments. It increases the visibility of the program and fosters a cooperative spirit between the government and PVO community.

Community fairs promote programs at the local level and provide an opportunity for students to share what they have learned about nutrition, health, human rights, democracy, reforestation, and environmental protection. It reinforces child-to-child teaching and child to community teaching. The community can celebrate their successes in the schools and municipal officials visualize the importance of the program to their constituents

Public partnerships can enhance school feeding programs. The PCI project has created some excellent public partnerships to complement the school feeding program. PCI is contracting with the Ministry of Education Reform Section to do teacher training and has an agreement with the Ministry of Health for visits by school nurses. The Peace Corps will be providing volunteers to support food distribution, teacher training, and basic sanitation efforts in the areas of hygiene, waste disposal, and gardening. PCI has arranged for the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) to donate more than 40,000 tree seedlings for reforestation education.

PCI also established private partnerships, with provided PCI with resources to support efforts in education, nutrition, and health. A Boy Scout campaign will collect additional products to support the dental hygiene effort. A private company has donated seed for the school gardens. PCI is also seeking donations from beverage companies for the SODIS program.

A simple calendar menu system was developed to monitor feeding operations. The calendar is a familiar tool as opposed to a complex form. Each month has a space to record beginning and ending inventories, and each day has a suggested menu and a place to record daily meals served. Field supervisors retrieve these pages monthly from all schools. It is a simple way to collect data, monitor rations, and verify inventory use.

To promote sound environmental practices, PCI will encourage the use of ecological stoves in the community through the school-feeding program. Built from local materials, sand, and mud, these stoves burn 80% more efficiently than open fires. Parents will learn to use and build these wood-burning stoves in schools where gas is not available. It is expected that this technology will be transferred to their homes, which is consistent with reforestation and environmental goals.

To complement the de-worming program, PCI has joined forces with a foundation to promote solar water disinfection. SODIS technology will be transferred from the teacher to the child and the community. The field supervisors have been trained to train the teachers to move the technology to the community through a child-to-child participatory teaching method.

Worms 10 inches long. As part of PCI’s cooperative agreement with the Ministry of Health, parasite testing and treatment began recently. In a rural school of Tiraque, 50 students were tested, and virtually all had worms. Continued exposure and infestation results in sickness, disease, and other health concerns. Children with worms cannot absorb nutrients properly, and they can become anemic, lethargic, and irritable, which inhibits learning. One parent indicated that her children frequently have worms that are 8-10 inches long.

Treatment has begun in areas vulnerable to parasites. Municipalities are funding the cost for exams and treatment, in addition to the approximately $0.50 per child per month they normally give. PCI is also focusing on education in hygiene and the use of the SODIS technology in these areas to prevent re-infestation of parasites in these children.

"Please ALWAYS send the milk! We like it very much." After visiting more than 10 schools and talking to parents, teachers, and students, monitors found that the milk drink made with sugar and corn-soy blend was the favorite food, with the rice pudding made with milk and sugar a close second. Initially, the teachers and parents observed slight stomach upsets and some diarrhea during the first few days of serving milk to the children, who were generally not accustomed to it. Nevertheless, the children loved the milk, and their eagerness to eat was obvious—there were no leftovers. As a visiting group was leaving a particularly poor rural school where children didn’t have utensils to eat their porridge, a child ran up to the car and shouted with a smile, "Please ALWAYS send the milk! We like it very much."

Children are more alert. When asked about the impact of the program, one teacher said, "The children don’t sleep in the afternoon anymore." Another stated, "They are happier and much more alert." And another remarked, "They are smarter now." All noticed the immediate impact of the food on the children’s ability to concentrate and stay alert.

Trying to learn on an empty stomach. Most children come to school hungry and almost all stay hungry during the day. During school visits, informal surveys of children by show of hands indicated that more than half the children didn’t get breakfast. Most walked at least one-half to one hour to school, and several walked one to two hours. In schools with new feeding programs, about 90 % of children had previously had nothing to eat the entire school day (typically five hours).

A celebration of democracy and education. The school fair provided an excellent opportunity to see all complementary programs rolling out. The press and radio were present to witness the voting that went on during the fair and the citizens’ rights and responsibilities themes. The fair also focused on child-to-child education, with children passing the message about nutrition and oral health to other children. A group of children from another school also gave a presentation on SODIS. Horizontal or child-to-child education is an innovative and effective means of communicating messages of democracy, health, and the environment to the community.

Last modified: Monday, April 14, 2008 06:13:23 PM