President’s Village gets food donation |19 October 2020
On the occasion of World Food Day on Friday, the Ministry of Fisheries and Agriculture (MFA) along with the Seychelles Agricultural Agency (SAA), the National Biosecurity Agency (NBA) and the Seychelles Fishing Authority (SFA), donated a selection of fruits and vegetables, including sliced fish and eggs, to the President’s Village.
The handover ceremony held at the village at Port Glaud were attended by the Minister for Fisheries and Agriculture, Charles Bastienne, and the children, staff and management of the village.
It was the principal secretary for agriculture, Antoine-Marie Moustache, and the chairman of the food week committee, Keven Nancy, who on behalf of the ministry, SAA, NBA and SFA presented the hamper baskets to the director of the village, Brigitte Balette and to the chief executive of the National Council for Children (NCC), Yasmine Umarji.
Also present were the chief executive of SFA, Nichol Elizabeth, among other representatives from the ministry, NCC and from the agencies.
Besides the fruits, vegetables, frozen sliced tuna and eggs, the village also benefitted with an array of vegetable seedlings and fruit saplings which were planted around the premises and in the different homes’ gardens with the help of the children.
Addressing all present, PS Moustache said that if the country is to attain a sustainable level of food security in the future, we need to invest in the young people.
He said this was the reason why the food week this year was mostly targeting youths to get them interested in fishing and agriculture and make careers out of them.
On the part of the village, Mrs Umarji thanked the ministry and her partners for their generous donation. To show their appreciation, the children of the village presented Minister Bastienne and Mr Nancy with a drawing as a token.
Apart from the sliced tunas, Mr Elizabeth also presented the children with snacks and refreshments.
Because of the Covid-19 regulations, the ministry and its partners have not been able to organise its main activity for World Food Day, which is the ‘Manifestasyon Manze Lokal’, usually held that the NSC hall at Roche Caiman. So the organising Food Week committee decided to bring this last activity in the community to spend the afternoon with the children of the President’s Village.
With regard to the planting activity, Ms Balette said that the children do some gardening around their homes but the village will be looking to have a proper home garden, with shade houses, in the future.
It is to be noted that similar donations were also made during the week to Foyer de Nazareth at Anse Etoile, Foyer de la Solitude at La Misère and Foyer de la Providence at English River.
In wrapping up the week’s activities Mr Nancy said the donation was the last among low key activities organised to commemorate World Food Day this year. He noted that the committee, though, was very satisfied with the activities organised and which mostly targeted youths. These featured talks on SBC’s ‘Topik konversasyon’, donations at the other three children’s homes, launch of the national orchard and of the youth farming enterprise and the ‘Every Home a Garden’ at Ile Perseverance. He hoped for a bigger Food Week celebration in 2021.
The accompanying photos show some highlights of the ceremony at the President’s Village on Friday.
Patrick Joubert
Photos: Joena Meme
