1. Presented By: Deepshikha Singh and Fouzia Khursheed Ahmad Research Scholars National University of Educational Planning and Administration New Delhi www.schoolofeducators.com

2.  Areas where community can provide support for Mid-Day Meal  Community mobilization/Sensitization of Community  Information Generation  Ensuring children’s attendance in schools  Infrastructure management  Procurement of food, cereals, and condiments  Cooking and serving  Convergence between ICDS and MDM www.schoolofeducators.com

3.  Posters, street plays, films etc for community sensitization and awareness  Addressing issues in Gram Sabha or Panchayat.  Community must understand that MDM is a means of social cohesion.  Community knows that MDM protects children from classroom hunger.  Awareness for importance of education through training of community leaders  Sharing of best practices through community interaction  Role play, meeting with experts.  Knowledge about nutrients in food-knowing nutritional value of food.  Awareness for health, diseases, and hygiene.  Involvement of PRIs for sensitizing community.  Social mobilization through media, pamphlets, documentaries, folk songs  Gender sensitization- meena munch, maa-beti mela www.schoolofeducators.com

4.  Identifying parents who are not sending their children to schools especially girls  Making a out of school child’s profile through household survey.  Identifying parents who do not allow their children to take mid day meal because of caste factors.  Knowing why information is needed like knowing educational status of children, arrangements for MDM, requirements of children for education.  Socio-economic status of the families.  Asking community for what kind of support households can provide to support MDM  Knowing causes of malnutrition  Socialization of families  Menu preferences (Food profile as per the staple food of particular geographical area)  Understanding caste dynamics within community  Anaemic level of children or any other deficiency disorders/diseases  School health programmes  Knowing manpower requirement  Knowing level of community participation  School mapping  Resource mapping  Knowing parents occupation and income level in the house www.schoolofeducators.com

5.  Dimension of kitchen  Avoiding shortage of fuel and firewood  Water facilities and proper toilet facilities  Use of solar cooker to be encouraged for saving fuel  Community can provide land for kitchen shelf  Maintenance of kitchens and store rooms  Local people can design how their kitchen should be like.  Checking the leaking in kitchens  Philanthropic support can be taken for infrastructure management of MDM scheme.  Community must understand what the availability of infrastructure is.  Planning the location of kitchen  White washing and painting of kitchens and storage rooms  Creation of slabs or platforms for serving food to children www.schoolofeducators.com

6.  Source of procurement/storage of food grains- Food Corporation of India, Storage and retail shops-procurement by schools for MDM  Fair distribution of food grains in community at fair prices  Storage mechanism for procured food by schools-proper storage rooms and containers  Checking the freshness of the grains, cereals and vegetables  Vegetables to be purchased on daily basis  Transparency about procurement and availability of food grains to the community- rates to be displayed  Local knowledge should be employed for storing food grains  Register and record keeping (stock registers, cash registers and attendance registers)  Procurement of cooking devices and utensils  Name of the contributors should be displayed on the board in order to encourage support from community for food procurement www.schoolofeducators.com

7.  Proper estimation of quantity of food to be cooked-this can be done in accordance of children present in school  There should be no shortage of cooked mid day meal-food should be self-sufficient for children  Experts should be consulted for knowing the best cooking practices and retaining nutrients in food  Community should be encouraged to provide some cooks or other workers as a volunteer reserved in case of absence of regular cooks.  Preparing menu for food  Providing non-veg food and kheer (Tithi-bhojan)  Children can decide about menu  Seating arrangements in MDM  Decisions to be taken to employ good cook- community women can play a major role  Shelf -life of food items must be checked-perishability should be checked  Ensuring nutritional value of the cooked food  Proper cooking mode and medium should be used-smokeless chulhas etc.  Cooking of seasonal foods (seasonal food can be easily procured from community)  Supervision of proper cooking and serving of food by the community people  Properly washed utensils, grains and vegetables for hygiene  Wastage should be minimum www.schoolofeducators.com