Nourishing Schools Foundation announces the winners of the Fit and Fun Ideas Challenge

Over 650 students from numerous schools and colleges across India participated in the Nourishing Schools Foundation’s “Fit and Fun Ideas Challenge” – submitting their ideas for the organisation’s Nourishing Schools Toolkit. The challenge, which recently announced its winners in March 2024, was a part of the Nourishing Schools Foundation’s initiative to foster innovation in harmony with fitness, while also harbouring a sense of responsibility.

The Nourishing Schools Foundation is a data-driven NGO aimed at promoting nutrition education as a vital tool to combat malnutrition at the grassroots level via its Nourishing Schools Toolkit – an informative, yet fun initiative to incorporate the significance of nutrition, well-being, and healthy lifestyle habits amongst students between 4th and 9th grades through the medium of both curricular and co-curricular activities. Through this challenge, students were encouraged to ideate initiatives that can be incorporated into the Toolkit in the form of games and activities, promoting physical activity, nutrition, and healthy food/lifestyle habits for students between 4th and 9th grades, who are then encouraged to solve nutrition-related challenges in their schools and communities.

The ideas laid emphasis on three broad categories – clean cooking with LPG, climate-friendly diets, and cultivating active lifestyles. The top three winners of the challenge, namely, Rebecca Liz Simon (Mount Carmel College Autonomous, Bengaluru), V Rama Chandra Chathurvedi (Vellore Institute of Technology, Vellore) and Ananya Sharma (University Maharani College, Jaipur) in the college students category and Vedant Madhav Pakalwad (Sir J.J. Fort Boys’ High School, Mumbai), Saikripa Roy (International School, Guwahati) and Ayn Fatima Syed (Christ Church School, Mumbai) in the school students category were given a honorarium Rs.5000, Rs.3000, and Rs.2000, respectively.

Highlighting the success of the challenge, Ms. Archana Sinha, Co-founder and CEO, of Nourishing Schools Foundation, notes, “We are immensely proud of all the academic institutions and participants for their unique submissions that will profoundly impact communities across the country. Together, with the help of several such initiatives, the Nourishing Schools Foundation aims to garner further attention to the importance of nutrition, particularly among adolescents, and ensure a healthy generation of young professionals, parents, and citizens.”

Addressing nutrition via extra-curricular activities not only ensures robust engagement among students but also engrosses them in cultivating life-long healthy habits. Through the incorporation of the winning ideas, the Nourishing Schools Foundation aims to roll out the toolkits in hundreds of schools over the next few years and impact thousands of schoolchildren.

Photo Description: Rebecca Liz Simon, student of Mount Carmel College Autonomous receives a certificate for securing first place among college students for the Fit and Fun Ideas Challenge at the Nutrition Conclave 2024