AT least 2,400 marginalized families from 33 barangays have received around 14,400 kilos of rice from the Cebu City Government.
Lea Japson, Department of Social Welfare Services (DSWS) chief, said the activity is under the Family Approach Program of the City. Each family gets six kilos of rice, 26 eggs and eight packs of noodles.
Distributions were already made in Barangays Kalunasan, Kamputhaw, Sambag 2, Mambaling, Labangon, Toong, Duljo Fatima, Inayawan, Kinasang-an, Cogon Pardo, Pahina Central, Tejero, Lorega San Miguel, Banilad and Malubog, among others.
Identifying the needy
The beneficiaries were composed of indigent families with underweight children, based on Operation Timbang.
A program of the National Nutrition Council, Operation Timbang Plus is the annual weighing and height measuring of all preschoolers 0-71 months old, or below six years old, in a community to identify and locate malnourished children.
The data gathered from this is used for local nutrition action planning, particularly in quantifying the number of malnourished, and for identifying who will be given priority interventions in the community.
Japson, though, pointed out that the Family Approach Program will cater to all 80 barangays.
Aside from the program, there are also DSWS personnel in each of the 80 barangays to see what the barangays need and how the City Government can help implement their nutrition and feeding programs.
Japson had said that this is to keep a close eye on the barangays to make sure that the number of malnourished children decrease, not the other way around.