“The situation is alarming, with the number of requests for assistance increasing by 30% over the past year, and we expect further growth this year,” says Ivana Tykac from WOMEN FOR WOMEN, o.p.s.
Several institutions in the Czech Republic focus on providing lunches to children from low-income families. The leading project providing meal support is WOMEN FOR WOMEN, o.p.s.: “Lunches for Children” (W4W), financially supported by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic (MSMT CR). In the past year, 1,234 schools and school cafeterias participated in the project, registering 18,765 child diners. The total amount spent through this project on children’s meals exceeded 60 million CZK. Another program that provided free meals to children from approximately 1,000 kindergartens and elementary schools was the European program FEAD, supported by the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs of the Czech Republic (MPSV CR). The third source of funding is the municipalities themselves, which, in some cases, also contribute to financing meals for children whose parents cannot afford school lunches. This amounts to meals for a total of 30,000 children.
The costs of meals in Czech schools began to rise over the course of the past year. The number of support requests from the W4W project increased by 30% last year. In 2023, according to W4W, the increase in the number of requests will be even more dramatic. W4W began to see the price increase of school lunches in the second half of last year, by approximately two to four CZK. While the situation varies in individual regions, school cafeterias will have to respond to the rising costs of goods and energy everywhere this year. Thus, more parents who find themselves in difficult economic situations will be unable to afford school lunches for their children. “For 2022, we have seen increased interest in the ‘Lunches for Children’ project. We expect that this year, as many as 20,000 children will apply, which amounts to up to 100 million CZK,” describes the current situation Ivana Tykac, co-founder and director of W4W, adding, “While last year, every eighth child could not have lunch at school due to financial reasons, in 2023, it will be every sixth schoolchild.”
In 2022, schools and school cafeterias from all regions, including Prague, requested free school lunches for their students. Most schools participated in the “Lunches for Children” project in the Central Bohemian and Moravian-Silesian regions. In Prague alone, there were about a hundred schools. On average, 27% of all schools in the regions participate in the project (the lowest in the Vysocina Region at 16% and the highest in the Usti Region at 38%).
“When it comes to the number of participating schools, students, and overall funds expended, the most substantial amount of assistance went to the Moravian-Silesian Region,” says Kamila Saffkova, a family advisor and mediator for W4W. She also notes that W4W always partners directly with the primary school, not the parents. If parents are interested in support, they must first contact the school.
“Teachers are usually very familiar with the children’s and their parents’ situations. When applying for the project, they keep in mind that we provide help where it is genuinely needed. We can thus ensure that assistance will really reach the children, allowing them to regularly receive a balanced and warm meal and eat lunch in the school cafeteria with their classmates,” explains Ivana Tykac.
Each request is individually processed by W4W as part of the approval process. To qualify for free school lunches, parents must meet several basic criteria: they must take care of their children, communicate and cooperate with the school, and, when necessary, properly cancel meals.
The “Lunches for Children” project is made possible through generous donors and is implemented with the support of the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic (MSMT CR). You can find more information about the “Lunches for Children” project HERE.
