The United States Government, through its Department of Agriculture (USDA), has awarded 27 million dollars for a literacy and nutrition program for primary schools in 4 regions of Cameroon. Nascent won the privilege of implementing this program through a highly competitive bidding process with other international non-profit organizations. The initiative, officially, the McGovern-Dole International Food for Education and Child Nutrition Program, will run for five years, and benefit more than 200,000 people, including 81,510 children, teachers and parents in 265 schools in the Adamawa, East, North and North West Regions. The program’s major components include nutrition, teacher training,

health and sanitation, and good governance; capacity building for government officials at the regional and national levels. In executing this program, Nascent will draw from over 6 years’ experience implementing a similar program in the North West Region, which has received overwhelmingly complimentary reviews from visiting US and Cameroonian government inspectors, as being the most effective of the McGovern-Dole programs in the region.
The grant will enable Nascent and its partners to implement a targeted five-year plan designed to improve the literacy and nutrition of school-age children in the four regions of Cameroon. This plan will focus on achieving the following objectives:

• Improve the literacy of school-age children by enhancing the quality of literacy instruction.

• Improve student attentiveness by providing daily school meals.

• Improve student attendance by raising community awareness of the importance of education, providing take-home rations and strengthening the capacity of parent-teacher associations (PTA).

• Promote good health and dietary behavior by enhancing knowledge of appropriate health, hygiene and nutrition practices, safe food preparation and storage techniques, and clean water usage.