Nestle Healthy Kids Programme Teaching Materials for Standard 2

Nestlé Kenya has today extended its nutrition education programme to 100 schools in Western Kenya bringing the number schools benefiting from the programme countrywide to over 350 as the company intensifies its efforts to help Kenya address malnutrition among school going children.

Nestlé, the global leader in Nutrition Health and Wellness, said the programme will target kids aged between 6 to 12 years. “Our Healthy Kids Programme promotes the well-being of children by delivering solid, locally relevant nutrition education and encouraging physical activity and hygiene in schools,” said Ms. Ciru Miring’u, Nestlé Kenya Ltd Managing Director and East African Cluster Manager.

Nestlé Kenya will spend more than Ksh 5million on the implementation of the program into the new schools. The money is earmarked towards providing essential nutrition education material including interactive posters and teaching manuals, helping teachers involve the children in interactive lessons about healthy eating, physical exercise, hygiene and sanitation.

“We launched the Healthy Kids Programme globally in 2009 with the aim of raising awareness of the importance of good nutrition and an active lifestyle among school-age children. Since then, we have seen positive change and a great improvement in the lives of the millions of children we have reached not only on our continent, but across the globe,” said Ms. Miring’u.

At the end of 2015, the Healthy Kids Programme had reached 8.4 million children in 84 countries worldwide. The nutrition education programme is based on research conducted on nutrition and physical activity among children at the lower primary school level. The results found that the early inclusion of healthy nutrition education programmes into primary schools’ curriculum through levels of formal and informal education, can improve knowledge and bring about behavioural changes associated with eating habits and a healthy lifestyle.

The Healthy Kids programme has already been successfully rolled out and supported in Nairobi, Kiambu, and Embu counties, with more than 800 teachers already trained to provide the necessary nutrition education to lower primary classes in these areas. Kakamega will now join the programme with Kirinyaga County expected to be included before the end of this year.