Integration of HIV/AIDS activities with food and nutrition support in ...

Integrated Programme Strategy 7:
Support for HIV/AIDs-affected families and children
through a school feeding programme
Families struggling to cope with chronic illness may decide to withdraw children
from school to earn money, help in food production, or assist in caretaking.
When a needs assessment suggests that school attendance may have been adversely
affected by food insecurity and the effects of HIV/AIDS in a refugee community,
a school feeding programme should be considered. If food is provided at the school site,
it should be given to all children to avoid stigmatization of those from
affected households. HIV/AIDS sensitization and prevention activities should be
integrated into the school feeding programme as well (Strategy 4).
What does this integrated programme strategy aim to achieve?
Children’s ability to attend school throughout the year is important for their cognitive,
social and emotional development, and should be protected in HIV/AIDS-affected populations.
Girls may be particularly likely to be withdrawn from school to take care of ill family
members. School attendance is vital for the development of life skills, including HIV/AIDS
prevention, and may reduce engagement in unprotected sex. School feeding should not be the
only response to evidence that HIV/AIDS in a household is associated with reduced school
attendance; it should rather complement appropriately designed and targeted food security
interventions that enable affected families to send children to school.
How would this integrated programme strategy be implemented?
Institutional collaboration and coordination. Educational facilities collect data on annual
and seasonal trends in school enrolment and attendance. Community health workers and
other cooperating partner agency health staff working directly with HIV/AIDS-affected
households can monitor changes in school attendance among these households. Where either
source of data indicates significant reductions in attendance as a result of chronic illness, and
where a feeding programme is determined to be a suitable response, staff can collaborate to
put a school feeding programme in place, with mechanisms to monitor attendance and assess
programme impact.
Emphasis on participatory and community-led approaches. Before a school feeding
programme is implemented, participatory research should be conducted with communities to
determine if food is the right response to the problem. School feeding may help families to keep
their children in school, but it does not address the issue of the caretaking burden or hunger
in the household. Participatory research can also help to identify opportunities to assist AIDSaffected
households in the care and nutrition of ill family members.
Logistics of implementation. School feeding programmes are likely to be inappropriate where
school attendance rates are high, unless nutritional surveys indicate a high prevalence of malnutrition
among school-age children. Reasons for declining school attendance, disaggregated
by sex and age, should be identified. Where resources allow, follow-up may be conducted for
children who do not attend school to determine the causes.
59