The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Food Programme  (WFP) of the United Nations (FAO) in collaboration with the Presidential Secretariat is working on a joint project entitled “Scaling up Nutrition through a Multi-Sector Approach”. With the funding of the Sustainable Development Goal Fund (SDGF) of Spain this project was formulated in close consultation with the Ministry of Women and Child Affairs, the Ministry of Health, Nutrition and Indigenous Medicine and the Ministry of Education. The Scaling up Nutrition project was launched in Sri Lanka in order to assist the Government with technical and financial support and be a value addition to the country’s Multi sector Action Plan for Nutrition.

FAO plays a prominent role when focusing on school and preschool nutrition. They also provide assistance with capacity building support for service providers and institutions linked to nutrition education.

Since the launch in 2015(?) FAOs support has been dynamic for the successful outcomes of this project. Thousand Five hundred preschools representing all 25 districts of the country have been selected by the Children’s Secretariat for the project implementation.

In the aspect of preschool children FAO has been actively promoting nutrition education to children (below 5 year) and parental societies. The agency is also working to implement minimum standard guidelines using the health and nutrition element, in order to improve nutrition levels of preschool children. They also create awareness among preschool teachers regarding the value of optimal nutrition for children and; work towards improving the nutritional value of meals served in pre-schools.

With the support of the Nutrition coordination division of Ministry of Health, Nutrition and Indigenous Medicine, arrangements have been made to conduct training of Trainers (ToTs) from 25 districts. The first such district training was held in Rathnapura on August 8^th & 9^th and trained 70 pre-school teachers.

 With the help of FAO project Consultant Prof. C. Lliyanage and Project Manager Priyanthi Chandrasekera these trainers are anticipated to conduct training workshops for selected pre-School teachers .These activities are expected to be carried out in close cooperation with Divisional, District and Provincial level authorities, with the aim to train the preschool teachers and empower communities through from August 2016 to Feb 2017.