100K Children in CV to Get Free Meals

Children who will enroll in government run daycare centers, preschools and supervised neighborhood play groups will get free meals courtesy of the Department of Social Welfare and Development’s (DSWD) Supplementary Feeding Program (SFP).

SFP is the provision of food in addition to the regular meals, to target children as part of DSWD’s contribution to the Early Childhood Care and Development (ECCD) program of the government. The food supplementation will be in a form of hot meals to be served during snack/meal time to children five (5) days a week for 120 days. The feeding program will be managed by parents based on a prepared meal cycle using available indigenous food supplies. Children beneficiaries will be weighed at the start of the feeding and 60 days thereafter and after the completion of 120 feeding days to determine improvement and sustenance in their nutritional status.

Melinda Cañares, DSWD-7’s SFP focal person explained that the budget per meal is P15.00/child/day. The P11.00 is for the purchase of the viand and P4.00 is allocated for the Iron-fortified rice.

Cooking utensils are also pegged at P1, 000 per day care center while the eating utensils cost P75.00 per child.

Cañares added that aside from the provision of free meals, complementary activities are undertaken to fully maximize the impact of the SFP.

These include deworming twice a year, Micronutrient Supplementation specifically provision of vitamin A, Nutrition Education (conduct of Parent Effectiveness Seminar, Family Development Session, Pabasa sa Nutrisyon, etc) and Growth Monitoring (monthly weighing & height taking).

She also added that the success of the past six SFP cycles implementation was due to the strong partnership with the LGU’s social welfare offices.

Now on its seventh cycle, DSWD-7 Regional Director Ma. Evelyn Macapobre disclosed that there will be 101,838 target beneficiaries in the region with Cebu Province having 68,036, followed by Bohol and Siquijor with 31,657 and 2,145.

She added that children-beneficiaries of SFP are mostly five years old and below.

Meanwhile, this year’s total fund allocation is pegged at P169,888,860 where P134, 426,160 will be transferred to the Local Government Units (LGUs) for the purchase of viand and rest will be downloaded to National Food Authority for the rice.