Twice a Day Feeding Starts This Month

The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) Field Office VII through its Supplementary Feeding Program (SFP) conducts twice a day feeding in selected local government units of Central Visayas starting June.

This pilot undertaking compliments the SFP’s existing 120-day feeding program.

SFP is the provision of food in addition to the regular meals. The food supplementation is in a form of hot meals to be served during snack/meal time to children five (5) days a week for 120 days. SFP is DSWD’s commitment to improve the Early Childhood Care and Development Program (ECCD) program of the government.

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

“The feeding will be implemented twice a day for a minimum of five days and a maximum of seven days a week for a period of 120 days. Hot meals and alternative meals shall be served during the day,” Cañares explained.

She added that if the session is conducted in the morning, alternative meal consisting of heavy snack is served before the session and hot meal after the session. For afternoon session, hot meals are served upon the arrival of the children followed by an alternative meal after the session.

The SFPs twice a day feeding is piloted in 19 local government units (LGUs) of Cebu Province, 18 in Bohol Province and two in Siquijor Province. The 39 LGUs were selected for the pilot implementation because of their fund utilization and they are among the priority areas identified by the National Nutrition Council.

Moreover, the twice a day feeding is expected to benefit 1,144 day care centers, 58 supervised neighborhood playgroup and close to 46, 300 children covering the three provinces. Budget for this undertaking is pegged at P83.3 million covering the 120-day cycle.