KOROR (Palau Horizon) — Palau’s Head Start program failed to provide healthy food to over 500 children as only $12,000 was expended out of the $47,000 allocated by the U.S. government for the food program, according to Head Start Director Belhaim Sakuma.
Instead of nutritious food, Sakuma said the money was spent on processed foods which were not healthy for the children.
“We practically failed to spend on nutrition,” Sakuma said in an interview.
Sakuma said they had to reprogram funds, otherwise the money would return to the U.S. government.
The program has been receiving $1.5 million annually from the U.S. government. Sakuma said this is enough to cover the needs of 19 centers currently taking care of 509 children.
However, he said nutrition remains one of the weakest areas of the program.
Sakuma said nutritional practices were among issues discussed during the week-long cluster training on the Pacific Head Start program hosted by Palau recently.
“We discussed how could we go back to the original diet. Serving canned food to young kids is not healthy. For this year, we intend to focus on providing the children with more nutritious food and as much as possible we want to utilize local market,” Sakuma said.
During the training, Public Health Director Caleb Otto discussed the value of local food compared to processed food.
“Nutrition is one of the most important issues involving our children. Ensuring that our children and family get the nutrition they need each day is a major issue,” Otto said.
