With the ongoing crisis due to the Coronavirus Disease 2019 or COVID-19, many families especially the poor have difficulty meeting their food needs as they need to stay at home and their livelihood put on a stand still. The ongoing enhanced community quarantine is making life more difficult for many families.
Recognizing the families’ need for dietary supplementation to prevent hunger and malnutrition, Malabon City Mayor Antolin “Lenlen” Oreta III mobilized their carinderia partners in their “Karinderia para sa Kalusugan ni Chikiting” (KKC) Project to provide nutritious hot meals to priority families in their barangays. This move was an immediate response of the city government to prevent food insecurity in this time of crisis. It also augments the hot meals provided by the 21 barangay councils to poor families most affected by the community quarantine.
The KKC is an innovative nutrition project of Malabon City wherein affiliated carinderia owners provide nutritious hot meals to undernourished children aged 6 to 59 months as well as nutritionally at-risk pregnant women. The carinderia owners cook hot meals using a cycle menu prepared by the city nutrition office. The project, hitting two birds with one stone, lets carinderia owners earn while helping undernourished children and nutritionally-at-risk pregnant women improve their nutritional status through daily feeding of hot meals.
For four (4) days from March 18-21, the KKC carinderias cooked hot meals using the funds provided by the city government. The hot meals were picked-up from the carinderias by a barangay representative and were distributed to the identified priority families including those with pregnant and lactating mothers and young children in the same barangay where the carinderias are located. This made the pick-up and distribution of hot meals easy.
In the true spirit of bayanihan, the KKC carinderia owners heeded the call of the city government to become partners in helping feed their fellow Malabonians with at least one hot meal a day. The carinderia owners are also tapped by the city nutrition cluster for their nutrition response. They cook food for families affected by disasters or calamities in the barangay. This partnership is included in the city’s Nutrition in Emergencies Plan.
As of the moment, a KKC carinderia in Barangay Catmon still operates to provide nutritious hot meals for the frontliners in the said barangay including local police personnel, barangay officials and staff, health center personnel as well as barangay nutrition scholars and barangay health workers. These frontliners need nutritious hot meals to sustain them as they attend to the needs of the residents, patients and clients amidst the COVID-19 crisis.
Needless to say, the government cannot do it alone. Everyone can do his or her own share to make this current situation better, to spark hope, and strengthen our faith in humanity. Let us all do our part and help one another to prevent hunger and malnutrition. Together, let us beat COVID-19! (TAR/NPC MEVF/NNC-NCR)
