Dubai housewives to get food safety lessons

Through the campaign, housewives and domestic servants will be educated on practicing proper food safety measures and effective waste management solutions.

BY PMA RASHEED

The Gulf Today, 6 April 2010

Dubai housewives, as well as domestic servants, will get food safety and waste management lessons from the civic body of the emirate.  And the message, for being vigilant in health issues and alert in matters of the environment, spreads to various groups and segments of the society, through “Um Omar", as part of a project launched by Dubai Municipality (DM) on Monday.

Strategies of the civic body will reach out to these groups through various channels, contributing to the delivery of the awareness message successfully with the recipients, according to a senior DM official.

Farhan Hassan Al Marzouqi, Head of Corporate Marketing and Exhibitions Section at the Municipality, said, “Through the campaign, housewives and domestic servants will be educated on practicing proper food safety measures and effective waste management solutions.”

“They will be given scientific lesson about the best health practices in dealing with food and household waste. The aim of the programme is to qualify and train the people in the helpers' category and housewives,” he added.

Al Marzouqi explained, “The Municipality’s team of healthcare and social service will train the housewives and domestic servants on the art of cooking, as it is the most appropriate place to bring the message of the health awareness message. The education or information provided to the particular group will contribute to raising the level of overall awareness of the community.”

“A group of housewives and domestic servants have already been given lectures on how to deal with various food items scientifically and reduce the domestic waste in favour of the sustainability of the environment,” he noted.

“They were also distributed publications in various languages to educate them on safe practices in handling with food, besides it a range of gifts were also provided for them,” he said.

“The campaign also sought to include courses on cooking on the basis of safe handling of food through the proper hygienic practices in food safety and throwing household waste,” pointed out Al Marzouqi.

He opined that updating the knowledge of housewives on the proper hygienic practices in food handling is highly significant.

Earlier, Hussain Nasser Lootah, Director General of the Municipality had said that the civic body is drafting strategic plans for highest standards of food safety practices this year.

"The food-borne diseases investigation and surveillance system of the civic body is being empowered with innovative programmes focusing on specific industries such as dairy, meat and poultry, water, and food service industry," he added.

"The food safety measures in the region will be further boosted with the new inspection systems into food poisoning incidences, stricter legislations education on food safety culture," said Lootah.