Case Studies

Vijay Lama, age 7,often ran away from school because his parents – workers in a brick factory – could not afford to pay for the school lunch all the time. Also, he often used to be sick. Attending the program “School Health and Nutrition” has changed his life: Vijay now likes to go to school and enjoys the free lunch, and his health has improved after he had beenexaminedby a health worker and given appropriate medication

School Health and Nutrition Program

In Nepal, not all children of school age are enrolled in school, and the literacy rate is only around 60%. The dropout rate in community schools is high. One reason for this is that many children from poor families are not healthy and therefore cannot attend school regularly. Child malnutrition is actually a severe problem in Nepal.

CDO’s School Health and Nutrition Program aims at helping children to develop their full physical, mental, and emotional potential. The program is directed at all children aged 3-5 years who attend pre-school in the Shree Buddha Lower Secondary School of Badagoan in the Lalitpur district of the Kathmandu Valley. Most of these children are children of carpet factory workers.

The program involves the following activities:

A glass of milk is provided for each child during lunch time on every school day.
Regular medical checkups of the children are carried out, along with the distribution of free medication and follow-up checkups (if needed). The parents are informed about the importance of (free) immunizations.
The children are taught proper techniques of hand washing and tooth brushing.
To make the program more effective, health training is also given to the parents on the topics of maternal and child care, personal hygiene, and the preparation of nutritious food and safe drinking water (through solar water disinfection – SODIS).