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Addressing School Hunger

National Consultation on Mid Day Meal (MDM), 3 December, 2013
Dear Friend, Greetings! Food insecurity has been a fundamental problem human being especially the marginalized of the society is fighting with on a regular basis. While it impacts every aspects of life, the lasting imprint of it is created at the childhood. The age of schooling is of vital importance as on the one hand because of children are engaged in supportive work of arranging food for the family, they could not be sent to school and on the other hand even if they are sent to school quite often they are either dropped out or the food and nutritional deficit affect their learning capacity. The problem has been identified and efforts have been done to improve the situation by different section of the society. The government has come up with schemes/programmes for changing the situation; however the implementation is fraught with lacunae at different level. The civil society has taken coordinated action and has been able to make some significant progress. One of this was the implementation and strengthening of Mid Day Meal (MDM) Scheme. The MDM termed as one of the important supporting factor to bring children to school and to provide them some nutritional support got a major boost when the Right to Education (RTE) Act was passed in the year 2009. It was felt that if we come together and can discuss ways and means to strengthen MDM with adequate implementation of RTE, it will help to use these two important tools in addressing school hunger. With this context, a daylong national level consultation on MDM is being organized in Patna on 3 December 2013. Civil society representatives, government officials, advisors to Supreme Court Commissioners on Right to Food, intellectuals, activists, media personnel etc would be there to discuss and suggest areas to focus upon for strengthening MDM and RTE. Venue: Time: A.N. Sinha Institute of Social Studies, Patna 11.00 AM to 5.30 PM

We request you to kindly participate in the consultation. Given your keen interest on the issue, your valued inputs will help in taking forward a sustained effort for a hunger free schooling for the children. With kind regards,

Pravind Kumar Praveen Regional Manager, Oxfam India

Rupesh Right to Food Campaign, Bihar

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