20 KREIS schools in Kalaburagi, Belagavi to teach on good eating habits

Bengaluru: The Karnataka Residential Educational Institutions Society (KREIS) and Nourishing Schools Foundation (NSF) have signed an MOU to implement a toolkit-based education programme in 20 schools in Kalaburagi and Belagavi districts, to enhance students’ understanding of nutrition.

“The idea is to help children take charge through hands-on games and activities,” said Archana Sinha, founder of NSF, to PTI. The pilot project of the toolkit-based education programme that began on October 28 will continue till December 31, 2026. “We are hoping to inculcate basic hygiene and good eating habits as well as menstrual hygiene for girls through this pilot project,” said Saileela Malladi, consultant adviser at KRIES, who is in-charge of special initiatives as well as bringing about collaboration with NGOs.

Sinha said their programme is data driven as they usually start with an extensive baseline survey of the children. “So, for instance, we find that only 20% of the children are washing hands in our survey, we will focus on ways to inculcate this habit among these children. That way, the programme becomes very targeted,” added Sinha.

According to her, NSF was established in 2016 and so far, they have managed to cover 330 government schools in Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Assam and Tamil Nadu, reaching over 1 lakh students. “Although we are formally doing this from 2016, I have been at it since 2012. Initially, it was difficult to get people to see the value of improved nutrition as schools are primarily concerned about learning outcomes,” said Sinha.

She said over the years they have managed to simplify the content as much as possible, by breaking it down to simple steps that could be conveyed easily to the school officials. Sinha said as is to be expected from the widening gap between the poor and the rich, the percentage of undernourished children has gone up over the years.

Interestingly, she said, the percentage of obese or overweight children has also gone up. “What we found is that improvement in income does not fix the problem automatically as people do not understand the basics of nutrition. Often, when there is an increase in income, it is the consumption of fat that goes up, not necessarily protein, for instance,” said Sinha.

Malladi said KREIS has about 800 residential schools in Karnataka catering to the children of safai karamcharis, as well as devdasis, rag pickers and under-privileged children. “NSF’s pilot project is being rolled out in 20 of our schools due to the efforts of Major Manivannan, Principal Secretary, Social Welfare Department as well as Kantharaj, executive director of KREIS,” said Malladi. While NSF will provide training, resources, and assessments, KREIS facilitates school selection and teacher engagement, aiming to create long-term positive impacts on students and

communities, she added.