The caterer, Lunchboxgift, are pledging to provide freshly cooked meals and clean drinking water for patients and staff in Ebola treatment centres in Sierra Leone during Nutrition and Hydration Week 2015.
Lunchboxgift project is an initiative of a UK registered regeneration charity ‘Let them help themselves out of poverty’. The initiative was born out of the Ebola epidemic in the Western part of Africa. In September 2014, in an effort to control the infection rate, Sierra Leone was 'locked down' and people were not allowed to leave their homes for three days. For those who live by the day, this was going to be a serious challenge.
To help the Government of Sierra Leone to address this issue, a small team of volunteers in the UK and Sierra Leone quickly came together and Lunchboxgift was born. In partnership with two NGOs (Campaign for Good Governance and YACAN) based in Sierra Leone and with the permission of the Government of Sierra Leone, Lunchboxgift provided 2,600 hot meals to seven vulnerable communities in the capital city, Freetown.
Building on the successes of the lockdown-feeding programme, Lunchboxgift has now provided 50,000 hot meals to hospitalised patients and frontline healthcare workers in Ebola treatment centres over the last three months. This is particularly necessary because the isolation of Ebola patients means that their families cannot get food to them in the usual way.
Caroline Lecko, Nutrition and Hydration Week lead, said: “This is truly inspirational. Wit so much risk and danger facing all the staff, that they can find time to commit to pledge to take part in the week shows just how much good food and drink are fundamental to any health or care setting.”
Nutrition and Hydration Week is ran by the Hospital Caterers Association, NHS England and the National Association of Care Catering, and aims to work in partnership towards a service where avoidable malnutrition and dehydration related illnesses are eradicated through improvements, education and service development.
Alongside Lunchboxgift, Unilever Food Solutions has pledged their support by offering a series of free City & Guilds accredited Health and Nutrition Training courses to care home caterers.
The Level 2 Award in the Principles of Nutrition is a City & Guilds accredited course. The one-day courses, which run from 24 February to 11 March, will give care home caterers an excellent grounding in nutrition and inspire them with simple changes they can make to their care home menus.
Latest estimates suggest that 1.3 million people over 65 in the UK currently suffer from malnutrition.