And while every teenager will now be able to be vaccinated not every child will have a meal tonight.
It goes un-reported, but malnutrition in children is more common than you might think, and many kids don't know where their next meal is coming from.
And that's why an MOU was signed this morning between FYFFES, the Ministry of Agriculture, and the Ministry of Education to turn surplus bananas into healthy meals for children.
This is a three month pilot project that will begin in southern Belize. At the signing ceremony, Minister Mai gave more details about what the project entails.
Hon. Jose Mai - Minister of Agriculture
"We are developing product made from banana, converting the un-exportable banana to banana flour. Our lab at central farm is doing that manufacturing from banana to banana flour. It is a product that is fortified in high nutrition value and it will be given to the children at the schools in Bella Vista, this is to combat the malnutrition that exists in children across the country, this is a pilot project and we are going to start to give to children and thereafter certain amount of time has passed, you go back and you evaluate the results of that pilot project to see the children have gained weight, improved in class. So, I think it's a very good start for us, it is a pilot project and we hope it will contribute to helping children in their diets and nutrition and we can see the benefits. We had a large percentage of un-exportable bananas, people call them rejects, they cannot make it into the European market or the foreign market. These banana have been thrown in the past, today we are going to put it to good use, there is no reason why our children suppose to be eaten ramen when they can get good nutritious food from bananas, so that is our objective, to allow the children to have a healthy nutritious snack or drink made from our local bananas. We begin now, pilot project in the south and we move on to the north, of course if the results are what we expect, we expand, if not, we go back to the drawing board and improve the product."
Julie Cournoyer - Global Director of Sustainability, Fyffes
"When this came to the attention Fyffes it was fully aligned with certain things we were trying to do because we wanted to both find solution to this loss of banana and also find a way to transform that into a nutritious product that could help communities and the population, so we jumped in the occasion and this is when we started talking to Mr. Montero, to Mrs. Codd and Mrs. Daily who had been involved in the past in those discussions and with time, with meetings and a lot of effort, we are here today."
