There are countless statistics on how many children are in school, and how many new classrooms there are, but no statistic on how many children go to school hungry. It’s a fact that many Belizean school children are malnourished and when they do eat, it’s a bag of chips or a handful of 5 cents sweets. But in the Yabra community, police are working to make sure that community children who need it, have a healthy meal at least once a day.
Jules Vasquez Reporting,
Every day as many as 140 children come here to the Yabra Community Center on Caesar Ridge Road to have lunch.
Douglas Hyde, Police Department’s Youth Coordinator
“This specific feeding program, the specific program looks how to give a youth, a child, a healthy food for the day. We realize that a lot of young people around this area go to school and they eat a lot of junk, a lot of healthy things, and so we saw the need of creating that feeding program that will assist in getting that youth at least one healthy meal for the day.”
And that goes a long way.
Inspector Diane Hall, Police Department
“We see a lot of children come here and you would sit down and watch them how they eat and we know that they do not have food at home and also it
gives them the ability to think in school. You know if you hungry you cannot think right. So by providing one meal and its fresh everyday, we do not give them leftovers. So it will help them in school.”
And it also helps the Police Department – because while this is far from a crime fight – in a very real sense it is a fight to find balance in the community.
Inspector Diane Hall,
“You know that we have to get to the root. If a child does not have to eat, then they can go out and steal. So we want to work from the root of the problem. We know that yes there are other crimes happening out there but we need to work with the community and it would make a difference so this is a form of proactive policing.”
Pro-active policing and also great PR for a much-criticized department.
Inspector Diane Hall,
“Most of the times we hear about police officers doing the negative so we are the ones doing the positives.”
And these kids just know it’s a tasty bellyful.
Douglas Hyde,
“First thing we get are big smiles, a big thank you and I think that is one of the most happiest thing for some of these kids to have to us, seeing that smile and hearing that thank you, listening to some of them saying we don’t eat for a whole day and getting that food for the day means a lot for us.”
The effort is co-sponsored by the Yabra Citizens Development Committee and the Unity Outreach Programme.
