US
Under Secretary For Agriculture Meets President
Kabbah
By Yusuf Alghali
The
visiting Under Secretary for Food, Nutrition,
and Consumer Services, Mr. Eric Bost, has indicated
his government's preparedness to support the
retention of especially girl children in primary
schools through the introduction of school feeding
and other integrated programmes.
Speaking at his meeting with President Ahmad
Tejan Kabbah at the Lodge Tuesday morning,
Mr. Bost, who is leading a delegation of senior
officials from Washington, said they were
here to see what the United States government
could do to help the Sierra Leone government
help itself in meeting the needs of its citizens.
He said the US Department of Agriculture are
experts in terms of meeting nutritional needs
of people and added that they were also keen
on providing all available technical resources
as the two countries continue to dialogue
about the future.
However,
given its limited resources, indications are
that the US embassy in Sierra Leone will concentrate
on assistance programmes in the far eastern
districts of the country, which, in its view,
suffered the greatest degree of war devastation.
For
his part, President Kabbah made note of what
he referred to as the "tremendous increase
in the number of children enrolling in schools"
as well as government's provision from its meagre
resources to address their varied concerns.
The President underlined the significance of
a school-feeding programme, which he believed,
would facilitate qualitative learning and considerably
enhance retention of students who would otherwise
drop out of school prematurely.
He
intimated that the nucleus of such a school-feeding
programme already existed in Masiaka, some 47
miles outside Freetown, where a locally-run
school has both teachers and pupils engaged
in farm crop production, from which proceeds
were used for school feeding or sold to remunerate
staff and put up structures. In this regard,
the President called on the visiting American
mission to examine whether the Masiaka experiment
could be replicated in other areas across the
country.
The
seven-man delegation accompanied by Ambassador
Chaveas has also been scheduled to hold discussions
with Sierra Leone's Minister of Agriculture
and Food Security, Dr. Sama Mondeh; Minister
of Health and Sanitation, Mrs. Agnes Taylor
Lewis; apart from the series of other meetings
involving Education, Science and Technology
Minister, Dr. Alpha Wurie, and thousands of
school children in Newton, Waterloo, Grafton
and Kailahun.
-End-
