The Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development on Tuesday, trained 50 food vendors under its National Home Grown School Feeding Programme on good hygiene.

Fatima Bissalla, the team leader for the training in Niger, said that the training was to equip food vendors with requisite knowledge on how to best handle their body, meals and the cooking environment for the benefit of the pupils.

“I believe that proper hygiene by the cooks will curb outbreak of diseases among the beneficiaries of the programme,” she said.

She added that the training was to ensure that all vendors embrace good hygiene following the standard set by the ministry for them to follow.

Mrs Bisallah said that the trainees would go back to their local government areas and step down the training to the rest of the cooks, adding that they would be monitored by desk officers and nutritionists at the council areas.

Umar Shaba, programme manager of the school feeding programme in Niger, said that the training had further exposed the cooks to what good hygiene was all about.

One of the cooks, Ramatu Shaba, said that the training had enriched their knowledge on how to clean the cooking environment and ensure that the food being cooked is not harmful to pupils.

The cooks were selected from each of the 25 local government areas of Niger.

(NAN)