The UN has agreed to provide one third of the cost of meals for schoolchildren in Mykolaiv and Odesa regions

The United Nations World Food Program has agreed to transfer up to 30% of the cost of meals for more than 160,000 primary school children in Ukraine, including those in Odesa and Mykolaiv regions, to the Ministry of Education of Ukraine.

This was reported by the press service of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine.

According to the ministry, in addition to Odesa and Mykolaiv regions, the World Food Program will cover 14 other regions of Ukraine: Kyiv, Sumy, Vinnytsia, Lviv, Ternopil, Khmelnytsky, Chernivtsi, Zakarpattia, Cherkasy, Chernihiv, Dnipro, Poltava, Zaporizhzhia, and Kharkiv regions.

WFP will also finance 50% of the cost of school meals for 18,000 children studying in underground schools in Zaporizhzhia and Kharkiv. According to the Ministry of Education and Science, the relevant agreements with the cities will be signed soon.

The UN World Food Program will finance 30% of daily meals for Ukrainian schoolchildren in grades 1-4 starting in 2022. During the first phase of the program, WFP supported the reimbursement of school meals for 12,000 children in 58 schools in Kyiv Oblast. Last school year, more than 102,000 children from 13 oblasts were provided with these meals.

In addition, since February this year, the UN World Food Program has expanded its supplementary cash assistance for vulnerable groups of the population and started its operations in Mykolaiv Oblast. According to the program, people with disabilities since childhood and children with disabilities are eligible to receive assistance