Free healthy school meals for all children

A quarter of children in the EU are at risk of poverty, and malnourished kids in the classroom are an increasingly serious problem. Every child has the right to a balanced diet for a healthy development and to be able to concentrate in class. Healthy school meals benefit both people and the planet.

Together with our partners Local Governments for Sustainability (ICLEI), Buy Better Food campaign and School Food 4 Change, we launched the campaign “Free healthy school meals for all children!”. This campaign urges the European Commission to enforce healthy school meals and food education for every child in every EU school, as the minimum standard for the Commission’s vision on healthy food and for the enforcement of the European Child Guarantee.

Our goal was to collect over 100,000 signatures to demonstrate public support, enabling our partners to secure a meeting with the Commission and incorporate our demand into their vision on healthy food. In collaboration with our partner Avaaz, we surpassed our target, gathering over 111,000 signatures. The next step is to present these signatures to the European Commission and Parliament before the Commission’s food vision is published - this handover will be done by a group of school children.

The hundreds of emails and comments we received clearly show that people are deeply concerned about the risk of malnourishment of our children. Here are some of their voices:

“Good nutrition underlies good health for children and is one of the most important building blocks for successful learning.” - Nicola from Italy

“SDG #2 aims to end hunger and ensure access by all, especially children and infants, in particular the most vulnerable and provide safe, nutritious and sufficient food, all the year through. Without this being recognised We, and the Governments world over are denying the Child the right to live, to thrive healthy and grow up, participate fully and contribute creatively becoming a being capable of fostering a new caring generation in the long term and in creating a sustainable World!” - Sonny from Lithuania