Dairy Innovation Awards 2008 were recently announced at Athens, Greece on 13th March’2008.There were more than 90 entries from 21 countries and the winners were selected for their contribution in the field of milk education, creating awareness among school children, development of new milk products and better packaging. A Delhi based NGO SHARP(School Health Annual Report Programme) scored the second position in the Best School Milk Initiative award category for their efforts in launching school milk clubs to promote milk as a fun drink among the school children. This is a first step of its kind in India which happens to be the largest milk producing country in the world and also has one of the highest numbers of malnourished children.

NGO – School Health Annual Report Programme (SHARP) along with the Gujarat Co-operatives Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF), which market AMUL had carried out a pilot project in seven schools of Anand and Vallabh Vidyanagar for the project. The objective of the project was to increase the awareness and promote milk consumption in the country. “When the students get the nutrients they need, they have greater ability to learn and are healthy throughout their life. We should always remember that kids grow up only once in their lifetime.” says SHARP’s general secretay Dr. Puran Prakash.

World School Milk Day, an initiative of FAO which is celebrated all over the world, was also celebrated for the first time in India by SHARP NGO at Baroda High School on 26th Sept’2007. Nearly eighty schools in Baroda participated in the function.

See link below for full list of award winners.

http://www.foodbev.com/dairyawards2008/files/awards/dairyawardswinnersMarch08.pdf

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School Health Annual Report Programme (SHARP) is a non-govt. organization (NGO) with scientifically planned health programme for school children, professionally managed under the guidance of eminent medical experts, sociologists, educationist, psychologists, nutritional specialists and others who have vision of promoting healthcare of children throughout the third world countries. The programme is unique in being the first programme to computerise and place health records of lacs of children on the internet in year 1999. The programme’s innovative approach has made it the most popular school health programmeamongst schoolswith lacs of children taking benefit out of it through its various projects.