Mondelēz Egypt Foods continues to enhance "Our Children’s Healthy Habits" in Upper Egypt

- The initiative aims to raise awareness on nutrition and healthy habits among children and their parents in Upper Egypt, urging them to adopt a healthier lifestyle

- All precautionary measures against COVID-19 pandemic were preserved during the activities

Mondelēz Egypt Foods, a worldwide leader in snacks industry, in partnership with CARE International in Egypt have continues to carry on ‘Our Children’s Healthy Habits” initiative, all while preserving all precautionary measures that ensure the safety of all participants.

“Our Children’s Healthy Habits” program, aims to promote healthy lifestyle for children and to address the issues of nutrition and obesity in rural areas in Upper Egypt, specifically in the provinces of Minya and Sohag. Based on 3 main pillars, the program includes promoting awareness on healthy nutrition practices and eating habits among children and their parents, and encouraging active play among children, especially girls, in addition to improving access to and consumption of fresh food.

Despite the difficulties of the exceptional circumstances, and the precautionary measures in which the activities are held, the program succeeded to achieve a set of goals. In Minya province, 3 meetings were held; two with the directors of educational administration of five schools in Abu Qurqas and one with the teachers to develop plans on how to maintain activities during lockdown. In addition, 500 female parents were trained on the fundamentals of right nutritional habits using interactive learning methodology, and 552 female parents where given theoretical and practical classes. These meetings were carried out during strict precautionary measures while distributing masks and dividing groups into 15 individuals instead of 25 to ensure maximum social distancing. Also, time was allocated at the beginning of each session to raise awareness of the Coronavirus precautions and the importance of wearing face masks, washing hands, and keeping social distance.

Mohamed Al-Morsi, General Manager of Mondelēz for Mashreq Countries, says, "Mondelēz is always working on influencing the communities in which it operates, sponsoring all development initiatives that aim to contribute in improving nutritional methods to its members, and spreading these dietary styles so it benefits the largest possible number of target groups”.

Al-Morsi added, "We consider this initiative very important and how it is necessary; as a well-established company working in the field of food; to contribute in any possible way to raise our consumers' awareness of food habits and body movements, so they can obtain healthy lifestyle, hence, a healthy society”.

In Sohag governorate, several meetings were held using zoom meeting program with representatives of associations to be familiar with their alternative ideas on how to resume activities in the most secured way for children and parents.

Nutrition and agricultural activities were also implemented in 21 nutritional and agricultural classes, with a total of 427 children. Another 21 classes for nutrition, and 14 classes for agricultural where implemented for female parents with a total of 427 women.

Marwa Hussein, Director of the Agriculture and Natural Resources Program at CARE International in Egypt, says, “Due to the lockdown, activities requiring physical presence of beneficiaries were suspended. An alternative plan was set by CARE team to pursue the activities without compromising the safety of participants. Therefore, active learning mechanisms, puppet theater, semantic words were used to attract participants attention. Sports equipment, like skipping ropes, has been distributed to encourage children to exercise at home regularly”

“Egypt was one of the countries influenced by the Coronavirus pandemic, which means that all project activities were stopped for the safety of the children and their parents. However, the crisis continues, and with the coexistence plan approved by the government, we have contacted Mondelēz International Foundation to develop alternative plans to complete with the activities, and we resumed working last July," said Amira Farag, Corporate and Government Affairs Manager in Mondelēz Egypt Foods commenting on the past challenges that faced the initiative.

"Mondelēz international vision and strategy is based on building a society that enjoys a healthy lifestyle and always raising awareness to that aim”. “Today, we are proud to announce the results achieved by the initiative despite the unusual circumstances that the world and Egypt are going through; we were insisting to move forward and raise awareness of the importance of applying a healthy lifestyle including nutrition habits in the Egyptian community, especially in Upper Egypt by promoting healthy nutrition and movement styles, and creating new educational and guiding methods that ensure establishing these principles among parents and children alike”, added Amira Farag

It is noteworthy that one of the initiative goals is to encourage active movement among children, especially girls. This goal is also aligned with the “National Fitness Project for School Students” program, which was recently launched, under the directives of President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi in order to raise awareness of the importance of the physical movement among all children.