As Israeli students head out of school for the summer, Israeli NGO NEVET has released an end-of-year survey strengthening the link between proper nutrition and decreased delinquency, and increasing the call for universal school lunch programs.
As a means to promote equal educational opportunities, NEVET provides nutritious daily school meals for over 11,000 Israeli children all around the country from disadvantaged backgrounds and dysfunctional homes. The survey observed positive trends in academic performance and school-based behavior in participating schools but saw the number of children in need of their service experience a very steep rise.
Rotem Yosef-Giladi, CEO of NEVET, said, "Since 2019 our activities have increased by 30 percent but in large part due to corona, the scope of poverty has grown even faster and the negative impacts on children have been enormous. We regularly speak to local community leaders and Knesset members as well as philanthropists who share our vision to simply provide a sandwich to each kid who needs it, which not only gives them nutrition but also self-confidence and the ability to thrive in their educational frameworks."
"These responses from principals share critical ‘on the ground results’ proving that providing students with nutrition is not just about making them less hungry but has direct educational and social impact on the classroom and school environment as a whole," continued Yosef-Giladi. "Most importantly it shows that with a modest investment in school nutrition today, it can lead to savings many times over by avoiding the need for far more costly welfare and social interventions down the road."
The NEVET program, which began in 2006 reaching 200 students, has since expanded to provide daily meals to over 11,000 students across Israel. The organization, whose operations are supported by local municipalities, philanthropic organizations and individual donors, coordinates the production and distribution of the daily meals to schools around the country.
The meals are packaged without any markings and then discretely provided to needy children so that the child can benefit without any stigma or knowledge of their classmates.
Over the past few weeks, Israeli schools have been repeatedly interrupted by ongoing work sanctions by the national teachers union, which directly impacts on NEVET’s operations.
"A kid at home and out of school can often also be a hungry kid so these strikes are clearly hurting the poorer demographic sectors that much harder," Yosef-Giladi says. "While teachers obviously deserve to be paid and we support that effort, we need to be fully aware of the larger picture of the damage that these strikes are doing."