Egypt’s Minister of Education and Technical Education Reda Hegazy on Monday stressed the importance of the Partnership for Healthy Cities initiative in taking action on non-communicable diseases within the global network of healthy cities supported by Bloomberg Charitable Foundation.
This came as Minister Hegazy, Minister of Health and Population Khaled Abdel Ghaffar, and Governor of Cairo Major General Khaled Abdel-Al attended a conference on the Partnership for Healthy Cities initiative at Omar Ibn El Khatab Language School in Cairo, organised in collaboration with the World Health Organization and the Egyptian Food Bank.
Hegazy said this initiative comes within the presidential directive to improve nutrition for school children and combat stunting and anaemia. He added that the initiative has achieved serious steps in improving nutrition in the targeted schools in Cairo.
“Educational materials were designed, printed, and distributed to the school community, based on a study of the nutritional attitudes, and behaviors of students and school staff. Co-ordination was also made with the Egyptian Food Bank to provide fresh food in school canteens, while applying World Health Organization standards for food safety,” Hegazy said.
“Schools are a major gateway to promoting healthy eating behaviours and reducing the risk of obesity, malnutrition, and chronic diseases, by providing school nutrition programmes for students. These programmes are a long-term investment in human capital and a means to enhance human rights,” Hegazy added.
The minister said that he is looking forward to more support from Bloomberg Charitable Foundation and expanding the initiative in a larger number of schools, which necessarily leads to improving the health of students.
The initiative consists of a global network supported by Bloomberg Charitable Foundation and includes 70 cities. It aims to save lives by preventing non-communicable diseases such as cancer, diabetes, heart disease and obesity by combating the risk factors that lead to them by applying international nutritional standards for food served and sold in public institutions, especially in public primary schools. The initiative targets 16 schools in Cairo through raising awareness of students on healthy alternatives to harmful foods via a host of games and activities.
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