Ms. Rhea S. Benoy, married and blessed with one child, has been working in the community for the last fifteen (15) years. She started as a Barangay Health Worker (BHW). In 2008, her nutrition supervisor who is a nutritionist-dietitian highly recommended her to be the Barangay Nutrition Scholar (BNS) in Barangay Kapitolyo because of her good performance.

Barangay Kapitolyo is a highly urbanized barangay in the city but still has pockets of families with malnourished children. Through the efforts and initiative of Rhea, school weighing and Garantisadong Pambata activities were done even in private elementary schools. With minimal supervision, she ensures that the basic nutrition services are provided even in the hard to reach areas in the barangay.

One of the strongest traits of Rhea is her patience in taking care of the families with underweight children. She ensures that weights of the children are regularly monitored. She conducts home visits for case-finding and follow-up. She also monitors if the families planted the vegetable seeds provided to them and later on, follow up if the families benefited from the produce of their vegetable garden. Rhea is very passionate in urban gardening and was trained on this. She helps families put up vegetable gardens and even maintains her own vegetable garden to encourage families that vegetable gardening is doable even in highly urbanized areas. Through her efforts, the owner of a vacant lot allowed families to use the land for a community vegetable garden.

As an active member of the barangay’s breastfeeding support group, she helps mothers to successfully practice exclusive breastfeeding from birth to 6 months of the baby and give appropriate complementary food starting at 6 months while continuing breastfeeding. She makes mother’s classes enjoyable and informative. Some of the mothers who successfully completed the mothers’ classes even became mother leaders, inspired by Rhea’s passion in community service. Mothers voluntarily help in weighing children, disseminating information and inviting other mothers to participate in the various nutrition activities of the BNC.

Rhea is a team player. In her spare time, she tutors her fellow BNSs on how to properly accomplish report forms and document their activities. She remains humble, approachable and fair to everyone. She is flexible and handles challenges with a positive attitude.

The Barangay Council witnessed the dedication and commitment of Rhea in serving the community. Hence, Rhea earned their trust and respect and this is the reason why they always consider most of her recommendations on what nutrition programs and projects to implement in order to address the causes of malnutrition in the barangay. She actively participates in BNC meetings and gives regular feedback on the status of the barangay nutrition programs implementation and her own activities as BNS. Through her persistent advocacy, the BNC provided funds for the different nutrition programs such as supplementary feeding, micronutrient supplementation, trainings and financial support for livelihood and other employment opportunities wherein families of malnourished children are given priority.

Rhea embodies the core values of a BNS such as integrity, efficiency, equity, and excellence in work making her worthy of emulation by her fellow BNSs.