CCLC, PBSP Nourish Sapangdaku Kids with Feeding Program

As a mother, it was painful for 32-year-old Judith Anor to find her children short and underweight for their ages, but with only her husband’s income as a construction worker to depend on, making ends meet was tough.

They mostly live on rice, salt, vegetables, and dried fish to cut down expenses, but even that is not enough to complete three meals a day.

The worst experience happened when Anor’s husband got sick, and she had nothing to feed her five young children for a week. The children had to stop studying and join her in looking for any kind of work so they could have something to eat and spend for their father’s medication.

“I have to go to the schools and explain our situation so it wouldn’t affect my children’s grades. We had nothing to eat, and we all lost weight. At that time, I really felt I may have failed my children as a parent,” the mother of three added.

According to the Philippines’ Food and Nutrition Research Institute, there are roughly 3.78 million Filipino children under five years old who suffer from stunting in 2015. Most of these children belong to the poorest of the population due to food insecurity, poor feeding practices, and inadequate health services. In Barangay Sapangdaku, Cebu City, where Anor resides, more than 40 of 957 children under five years old are either wasted or stunted.

To address this concern, Philippine Business for Social Progress (PBSP) and the Cebu Centennial Lions’ Club (CCLC) implemented a supplemental feeding project that aims to improve the nutritional status of Filipino children under five years old. The project supported 20 children from Barangay Sapangdaku who are below the ideal weight for their ages. They received supplementary dietary support for 120 days.

Aside from the supplemental feeding, the project also educated households, particularly mothers, on basic nutrition and food preparation, healthy eating habits among children, and on how to sustain their own source of nutritious food through Food Always In the Home (FAITH) gardening.

PBSP IN HEALTH

Through the 120-day feeding, one of Anor’s children now improved their nutritional status to normal. Anor also learned how to prepare healthier meals with the vegetable garden also provided by PBSP and CCLC.

“I feel better and happier now. I can finally feed my family with healthier meals but with lesser expenses because I now have my own vegetables in my own garden,” Anor added.

The supplemental feeding project is a component of PBSP’s flagship program for Health, where the organization hopes to contribute to the reduction of stunted and wasted children aged 24 to 59 months old, due to lack of nutrition, from 33.4% to 21.4%.

The program is also aligned to the Philippine Plan of Action for Nutrition for 2017 to 2022, which focuses on addressing persistent malnutrition concerns in the country and is anchored in the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals for promoting Maternal, Infant and Young Child Nutrition.

As of 2018, PBSP was able to nourish 80 children in Cebu City of Cebu and Bago City of Negros Occidental.

CCLC at 20

The program was also launched in celebration of the 20th anniversary of CCLC, a Cebu-based non-profit organization dedicated to doing civic duties through various types of projects and programs such as adopt-a-school project, livelihood program, installation of water systems for public schools, construction of waiting shed, educational workshops, feeding programs, and other charitable activities.

Aside from the supplemental feeding program, the organization also provided free eye check-up services to the children of Sapangdaku. The organization also supports PBSP’s annual reforestation program in Cebu’s watersheds.