The City of Manila attributes the efficient implementation of their nutrition programs to a number of factors. Among those are the well-grounded advocacy on nutrition, active participation of the community, political will of the City Mayor as Chair of the Manila City Nutrition Coordinating Council (MNCC) and supporting policies on nutrition and related programs and projects.
The MNCC adopted a lifecycle approach in the planning and delivery of nutrition services. The city is committed in providing a continuum of nutrition interventions to address both the immediate and underlying causes of malnutrition. The city recognizes the fact that malnutrition is more than just a health problem and must be dealt with the right mix of health, nutrition and related programs and services.
The City of Manila has 897 barangays and to facilitate the planning and coordination of nutrition programs, a District Coordinating Nutrition Council was organized in all the six (6) districts of the city. A total of 174 Barangay Health Workers who also function as Barangay Nutrition Scholars are deployed in the priority barangays.
One of the banner programs of the city is the Nutri-bun and Milk Supplementary Feeding of severely wasted/thin school children in all public elementary schools. Dubbed “Ang Pagbabalik ng Nutribun Sa Maynila”, the feeding program was able to feed 7,500 school children for 120 days. A total of Php 15M from the SAF of Mayor Estrada was spent for the Nutribun while Php 32M from the Special Education Fund of DepED-Manila was spent for the milk. The DOH-NCRO also funded and implemented a supplementary feeding program for underweight children in Smokey Mountain in Tondo. Supplementary feeding programs were also conducted in different barangays funded by the NGO partners of the MNCC.
Skills training were also conducted to provide livelihood opportunities to families enrolled in Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps). Despite being a highly urbanized city, the MNCC was able to establish community and school vegetable gardens. They also have an intensive advocacy campaign on breastfeeding and regularly conducts breastmilk letting activities. In 2016, more than 2,000 liters of milk were donated to the Philippine General Hospital, J. Fabella Memorial Hospital and Justice Abad Santos General Hospital by more than 600 milk donors/breastfeeding mothers who participated in the breastmilk letting activities conducted in 34 health facilities.
The MNCC’s strong points include good documentation of their nutrition programs, active resource generation through partnership with various NGOs and other civic organizations, and well-coordinated programs and projects. (ELF/NPC MEVF/NNC-NCR)
* The City of Manila was the recipient of the Outstanding LGU in Nutrition Program Management 2nd Runner Up Award during the 2017 Regional Nutrition Awarding Ceremony (RNAC) on July 28, 2017 at Novotel Hotel, Quezon City.
* Article was included in the 2017 RNAC Souvenir Program. Information included in the article were provided by the MNCC Nutrition Secretariat.
