More than a school lunch - Bringing up Vietnamese stature in Cao Bằng

Helping Chay put her hair in a bundle, Mr. Vừ A Bình was still amused at times to see his youngest daughter’s enthusiasm to go to school. Just over a year ago, little Chay much preferred following her siblings around than getting up at five and hiking to class. But then, going to school got a lot more fun, especially when Chay knew she would be fed hot meals with meat and veggies. 

Chay’s school (Nà Ó location - Thạch Lâm communes, Bảo Lâm district, Cao Bằng province) was among the ones participating in For Vietnamese Stature Foundation’s (VSF) “Growing up with mountainous preschool students” project which commits to sponsoring school lunches for students in difficult teaching locations in Cao Bằng and Sơn La provinces. 

Meager meals, difficult lives

Being 172 kilometers away from the province’s center, Bảo Lâm remains Cao Bằng’s most remote and difficult district when 76.6% of its residents are classified as poor and near-poor. Due to the land’s challenging terrain, local schools have to establish various teaching locations so that children of ethnic minority communities and isolated villages can attend school. Located in both “30A Program” and “135 Program” areas that need special attention for poverty eradication, Thái Sơn và Thạch Lâm Preschools also took this “splitting” approach to accommodate the disadvantaged students, all of whom were of H’Mông and Dao ethnicity. Despite the schools’ efforts, many children, aged 3 to 5, still had to walk or hike 5 - 6 kilometers of hill and dirt paths to get to school. Accompanying them was the meager lunch containing only plain rice (if lucky) or “mèn mén” - steamed minced corn, a staple of the difficult, mountainous life. Oftentimes, the food could go bad under the summer heat, making many of the students return home for lunch, 80% of which would not return for the afternoon class due to the long and difficult path. 

Preschool students in Bảo Lâm district usually had only steamed mèn mén - minced corn -  or plain rice to bring for lunch

“We only got ‘mèn mén’ at home” - Ms. Giàng Thị Mỳ would ponder every morning when preparing lunch for her son, Phung to bring to school (Khau Noong location). Having just steamed mèn mén for every meal, sometimes with plain veggie soup if lucky, Phung looked as if he was just three even though he had turned five earlier this year. Getting insufficient nutrition, Phung was diagnosed with malnutrition. Phung’s situation was common, as all of the students in Bảo Lâm’s teaching locations were under the recommended weight and height development by the National Institute of Nutrition, according to a recent survey done by the Ministry of Education. 

Meals that foster the will to knowledge

From 2020, with the support of individuals, organizations, and businesses in Vietnam and abroad, VSF has been implementing the “Growing up with mountainous preschool students” project at five teaching locations of Thái Sơn và Thạch Lâm, along with another location in Sơn La, bringing over 211,000 free nutritious meals to more than 700 student counts. 

For the past three years, the project has replaced the cold plain mèn mén with hot lunches of white rice, meat, vegetables, and hot soup, along with afternoon snacks like porridge and noodles - all prepared according to the national guidelines for school nutrition. Each meal costs 9,500 VND, making it 1,700,000 VND to sponsor a student’s meal plan for a whole school year. 

VSF’s “Growing up with mountainous preschool students” project has been sponsoring free school meals for children in five teaching locations in Cao Bằng and one teaching location in Sơn La

Thanks to the hot school lunches, the health and stature of the students at all five teaching locations of Thạch Lâm (Khau Noong, Nà Ó locations) and Thái Sơn (Khau Dề, Sáng Soáy, Bản Là locations) Preschools improved significantly: 100% gained height and weight. At the end of the school year, Phung was able to get off the “malnutrition list.” Like many of his classmates, his favorite meal was sauteed minced pork with carrots, and he was already looking forward to the next school year. 

The hot lunches also helped foster the students’ will to stay in school, completely “erasing” the afternoon dropout rate of up to 80% before the project’s launch. “The children get to eat better than at home and play with friends, so they love going to school, even for those 3-year-olds. Before the project, we had only around 12 students, but now all of our 33 students don’t miss any class, rain or shine”, Ms. Nông Thị Tuyết, a teacher at Khau Noong location, Thạch Lâm Preschool, shared. In addition to providing nutritious meals, the project also aims to improve the learning conditions of the teaching schools by renovating their water systems, building school kitchens, and providing warm blankets and school supplies,... 

Apart from the year-round sponsored lunches, VSF also organizes yearly trips to the beneficiary locations and brings additional support, from school supplies to warm blankets, for the students 

“The ‘Growing up with mountainous preschool students’ project, along with our initiatives in improving school nutrition and children’s welfare,  shows VSF’s and our partners’ commitment to providing timely and practical support to children in disadvantaged areas, helping them access opportunities to grow up healthily and happily and reach their full potential,” Ms. Trần Thị Như Trang, Director of VSF, elaborated on the mission and vision of the project. 

“On behalf of all teachers, parents, and students, I would like to send our sincere gratitude to the project for bringing nutritious, loving meals to our children. We hope that the project will carry on its mission to support more children in the upcoming school year and spread this goodwill to even more teaching locations in the future,” Mr. Nông Văn Long, a teacher at Sáng Soáy location, Thái Sơn Preschool, shared. 

For the 2023 - 2024 academic year, VSF will continue to sponsor five teaching locations in Cao Bằng. Since 2022, VSF has expanded the “Growing up with mountainous preschool students” project to Sơn La and provided school lunches for 116 students with difficult backgrounds at Chiềng Khoa Primary and Secondary School (Vân Hồ commune). Since its launch in 2020, the project has received monetary donations, along with time, expertise, and efforts, from 263,365 individual sponsors and 18 gifts from corporate, organization partners, and groups, amounting to a budget of more than 1 billion VND. This encouraging community engagement and participation is also the project’s special meaning and message of love and goodwill.