SEAMEO SEPS Seeks to Sustain Meaningful Benefits of School Feeding Programs

Thanks to a regional project, seven Southeast Asian schools have made positive and potentially sustainable impacts on their students via school breakfast or lunch initiatives.

“Their students have developed hygienic habits, like washing their hands before meals, and become more cautious about food choices,” said Ms. Duriya Amatavivat, Director of SEAMEO Regional Centre for Sufficiency Economy Philosophy for Sustainability (SEAMEO SEPS).

The Centre, in collaboration with the Southeast Asia One Health University Network (SEAOHUN) and Chevron, has implemented the Promotion of Well-being in Schools in Southeast Asia Project at the regional level since June 2024. During the first phase, participating schools engaged in capacity building and developed proposals to upgrade their school lunch/feeding programs. These proposals were then implemented with financial grants from last December to June this year at seven selected schools with results.

Winners of the project’s grant awards, which hail from Thailand, Cambodia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Brunei Darussalam and Indonesia, shared their success stories at the Seminar on the Integration of One Health and Sufficiency Economy Philosophy (SEP) for Sustainable School Well-being earlier this month. 

“Our initiative has promoted healthy eating habits in not just students but also their parents, who were invited to our school to see what their kids had learned,” said Mr. Danaiwat Manee, Director of Ban Pangmahan School in Thailand’s Chiang Rai. Teaching 169 students, mostly from minority, hilltribe groups, his school initiative focused on promoting healthy food for sustainable good health by growing organic crops within the school compound and ensuring balanced meals which included the five food groups in their school lunches. 

The Smet Primary School from Cambodia reported their success in helping at least 26 students out of malnutrition based on BMI health checks, and raising awareness of food safety, hygiene and nutrition, while Brunei Darussalam’s Sekolah Rendah Pehin Dato Jamil & Sekolah Rendah Pengiran Anak Puteri Besar was proud of fostering students’ new habits based on nutrition knowledge in everyday life.  So, it’s not just teaching facts like “vegetables and fruits are healthy” — it’s about guiding them to actually practice eating balanced meals, making smart snack choices, and thinking about nutrition whenever they eat.

Duriya now expects all the seven winners of the Promotion of Well-being in Schools in Southeast Asia Project’s grants to share their know-how with between eight and ten nearby schools each.

“We will follow up on their progress in the next few months,” she said.

As the Promotion of Well-being in Schools in Southeast Asia Project is also strongly rooted in the concept of sustainability, the project’s participants are urged to sustain their program benefits. Their programs, which have already integrated the Sufficiency Economy Philosophy and SEAOHUN’s ONE HEALTH knowledge, are well set to scale up and expand positive impacts especially with stakeholder engagement.

“Once the schools set up good systems, local communities will likely be supportive,” Duriya said, adding that the inclusion of local and national education authorities in the various project activities had helped forge relationships that are critical to the long-term sustainability of the program.

Florian L Guanio, the Principal of the Patiis Elementary School in the Philippines, said her school’s program Project SMILE has met its goal of serving nutritious breakfast to all 650 students. As a result, they had seen noticeable improvements in the students’ energy levels, performance in class and attendance. Although attendance was only 86% in January, it climbed impressively to 98% by July 2025. By cultivating a close relationship between the school, parents, community and local government she was confident that they would be able to continue implementing the project in the foreseeable future.

Pol. Lt. Col. Dechavat Vongvai, the Principal of Aroyama Border Patrol Police school in Thailand’s Chiang Mai, also said parents had a significant role in sustaining the improvements in nutrition the school has made after the program officially ends, adding that.

“We are now expanding the program’s results to other Border Patrol Police Schools in the northern part of Thailand and our neighboring communities,” he said.

Inggid Megasari from the Indonesia-based SD Negeri 2 Landasan Ulin Barat said her school had already become a model of collaboration and innovation in health and nutrition with a solid foundational knowledge and experience to support other schools in joining the same path.

“After we implemented our nutrition education program, our students have made healthier food choices. They are also more active in school life,” she added. All 396 students have directly engaged in the program’s activities. Of them, 35 have grown 10 types of herbs for school use themselves.      

Mr. Koh Chin Leung, School Principal of SJK (C) Chung Hwa Tamparuli from Sabah, Malaysia, who voluntarily joined this programme, reported that 146 of the school’s 338 students have been involved in the HiTs Programme and improved their eating habits. As a result, 26 out of 66 students with abnormal BMI are in better shape. Furthermore, 50% of upper primary students had reduced their junk food intake and made healthier choices, based on school findings.

Syazaful Natrah, a teacher at Sekolah Bimbingan Jalinan Kasih (SBJK) in Malaysia’s Kuala Lumpur, has seen daily improvements in students’ hydration habits through its Hydrate for Health Campaign. “Students are now drinking water more regularly, boosting both their health and focus in class”, said SBJK teacher – Syazatul Natrah. She stated that more parents have become actively involved in the school since the launch of the school’s free-lunch program and students’ willingness to show up for classes has improved. Most of its students are from marginalised groups such as orphaned children, extremely poor, homeless and undocumented children. Nutritious meals, on top of formal education, have the power to draw students to their school.

“We believe the higher attendance, the better the lives of our students will be,” she said.

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