By Raeanne Raccagno
News Editor
Good News Lions is the Nation & World section’s bi-weekly news segment, highlighting positive news in the country and around the world. The theme of this article is highlighting different governmental actions around the globe that have the youth’s best interest at heart.
Sweden launches pilot free food program to nourish students
Students at a handful of schools in Sweden can pick up healthy food donated by local food markets due to a new pilot program. The program helps decrease food waste and provides students with nourishing foods instead of leaving class to grab sweet treats from a vending machine, according to The Guardian.
Along with a revamped school menu, institutions are also adding social spaces for students to enjoy their nutritious snacks. Teachers at participating schools have noted an increase in students being more engaged and energized in the classrooms.
Sweden has been offering free lunches to their students since 1946, and in 2011, it became law for them to be nutritious. In 2018, the Swedish Food Agency said that schools were not providing enough nourishing food.
This led to Vinnova, the Swedish Agency for Innovative Systems, setting up joint food programs to progress towards more sustainable school food practices and to act as a domino effect to transform Sweden’s broader food system.
Finland daycares awarded money to ‘rewild’ facilities to boost children’s immunity
Forty-three daycares in Finland are receiving 1 million euros in grants to add more garden spaces in their schools to increase young children’s exposure to nature, according to Good News Network.
A 2020 study done at a Finnish daycare found that children who have a higher number of interactions with nature have a lower probability of developing illnesses that result from immune system disorders. The observational study found that immune-mediated diseases were more prevalent in areas that adopted modern urban culture as compared to areas with preindustrialized lifestyles. A leading hypothesis was that this was caused by the biodiversity loss that comes with urban spaces.
The Natural Resources Institute Finland, one of the organizations involved in the previous study, is now launching the Nationwide Research on the Rewilding of Kindergarten Yards, which is part of the Biodiversity Interventions for Wellbeing project. The initiative involves 43 daycares compared to the previous sample of 75 school children that was in the 2020 study.
The Maldives has banned smoking tobacco for the younger generation
The Maldives became the first country to implement a generational smoking ban for tobacco. It is now illegal for those born on or after Jan. 1, 2007, to use, buy or sell tobacco products, according to The BBC.
In the previous year, the Maldives made the import, selling, possession, usage or distribution of electronic cigarettes and other vaping products illegal. The new tobacco plan applies to all tobacco products, and retailers are required to verify a consumer’s age before the purchase is complete.
