15 School Meal Programmes

Once again, the Mustique Charitable Trust renews our 15 School Meal Programmes for the 2024-2025 Academic Year as the Trust appreciates that food is one of the basic necessities of life and the lack of proper nutrition affects a student’s overall growth, health, energy level and performance.

Food is one of the basic necessities of life and the lack of proper nutrition affects a student’s overall growth, health, energy level and performance.

As one of its core Grant Programmes, the Mustique Charitable Trust funds school meal programmes in 13 Secondary Schools and two (2) Primary Schools, with a focus on rural schools that are ranked in the high and extreme levels of poverty.

We selected mainly secondary schools, since unlike the primary schools, secondary schools do not have government funded feeding programmes. While the two selected primary schools are both located in the Red Zone and ranked in the extreme poverty category.

These are all annual recurring grants, where 20 to 40 “most in need” students at each school receive daily lunches throughout the academic year

The programmes also provide income to at least 10 self-employed lunch providers who have conveyed their thanks and reports of the improvement of their own standard of living.  

In addition, the Trust recommends that lunches should follow the Health Nutrition Unit guidelines and encourages the use of local produce and fish where possible to provide income to small farmers and fishermen from the surrounding communities of the schools.

While the MCT School Meal Programme first objective is to provide a lunch to the selected students, we are also trying to incorporate healthy dietary habits in the students.

Over 500 students overall benefit from our 15 School Meal Programmes for a total cost of US$130,000 per academic year.