TO find the undernourished children in society, the place to look would be among the poorest of the poor.
This is why when the Department of Health (DOH) launched the National Guidelines for the Management of Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM) for children under five years old in 2015, it included in its scale-up plan the linking of SAM management services with the 4Ps Conditional Cash Transfer Program of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD).
The DSWD’s Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) gives cash incentives to families on the condition that they invest in their children’s health and education, and avail themselves of maternal health services.
Beneficiaries are those who live below the poverty threshold of P9,058.80/month for a family of five, who have children 0-18 years old, and who agree to the DSWD’s contract of commitment.
Pantawid regional program coordinator Raquel Enriquez said while they had yet to receive word from the DOH on a formal linkage, they already monitor the weight of children 0-5 years old monthly because it is a condition in Pantawid that pregnant women and parents with children 0-5 years old visit the health center monthly and attend Family Development Sessions, to receive the P500/month health grant.
“From there, interventions are already provided by the local government unit (LGU),” she said. “These children are also in day care or kindergarten, so they can avail themselves of the programs available.”
Enriquez said 4Ps beneficiaries can use the DSWD's P500 grant to buy vitamins.
“But sometimes, they can get free vitamins at the rural health units (RHU),” she said. “During their monthly visits, they can also get free medicines, having been identified as the poor families.”
Since January, the DSWD 7 has also been giving rice grants of P600 a month per household to 4Ps beneficiaries active in meeting the conditions of the program.
“So we are addressing not only the children who are malnourished but the whole family,” she said. The P600/month cash subsidy will be given until December 2017.
Education
The Family Development Sessions (FDS) also inform families of the rights of the children, which includes giving them nutritious food.
“Part of the FDS is the health and nutrition module, which consists of 11 sessions,” said Emmalyn Morada, focal person, Family Development Session, DSWD 7. “Parents are given education on the proper food combination, and the recommended energy and nutrient intake of pregnant women, lactating mothers and children in their age bracket; the basic services they can access from supplemental feeding, from the LGU, the RHU, DOH, so they will know the services they can avail themselves of aside from the DSWD rice subsidy.”
Garden
Morada said Pantawid beneficiaries are also encouraged to have a garden, whether “backyard, front garden, container garden, school garden or communal garden,” so they can grow their own food.
Some 96.88 percent of 127,218 Pantawid household-beneficiaries in Cebu have a garden.
“Sometimes in a sitio, the barangay gives a piece of land that they can cultivate. So these members use that as their garden. As for school gardens, which are part of the communal gardens, it is the parents who tend to these,” Morada said.
Their crops should have nutritional value.
“So we suggest that they plant malunggay; non-seasonal fruits and vegetables, like papaya, banana, ganas (camote tops), pechay, alugbati (Malabar spinach); spices like tangad (lemongrass), tomato, to complement our rice subsidy,” Morada said.
The Department of Agriculture gives the seeds for free, and its resource persons teach organic farming during the FDS.
Planting the seeds of knowledge is the start of better child nourishment. (CTL)