During a recent visit to the rural school OŠ Prota Mateja Nenadović in Brankovina, near Valjevo, the school director, Milica Ostojić, surprised us with the news that she had arranged a television interview for us (Ratko Bojovic and Steve Quarrie, BSN/EUTA) at the local television station, VTV, Regional Television Valjevo. VTV is available on cable in Serbia and is widely-watched in the Valjevo area. The interview, presenting the Strength2Food project objectives and in particular the work in Serbia to use the school meals pilot scheme to improve meal quality and help stimulate local agricultural producers, is to be broadcast on 28th June during prime-time evening viewing, and will be available soon on YouTube.

Milica is one of Serbia’s most entrepreneurial primary school directors with a long track record of projects to integrate her school into the local community and to help stimulate the local economy, thereby enriching her children’s education. The school already has its own market garden with over a dozen types of vegetables to help her children get used to different flavours and appreciate the value of good nutrition. Her knowledge of the local growers and schools in the area will be very valuable for Strength2Food as the project develops its school meals pilot scheme.

In other BSN/EUTA news, now that the school term is over for the summer and the children and kitchen staff have left on their holidays, we can look back at the valuable support we have had this school year from our enthusiastic team of present and former PhD students who have visited nine schools in Belgrade and Novi Sad collecting information for the school meals pilot scheme, as well as helping to analyse information from the detailed questionnaire completed by schools earlier this year. So, we would like to acknowledge the help of –

Maja Medojević Pavlović      Ivan Koprivica                        Martina Ormai

Ivan Pavlović                          Svetlana Milјanović               Hadi Waisi

Marija Vidosavljević              Milijana Prica                         Branislava Veselinović

Vladana Petković                   Ana Milošević                        Jelena Kulaš

Gorana Danon                         Katarina Tešović                    Katarina Ćuković

Aleksandra Veselinović         Sofija Stupar